Only Time
by BleedingInDarkness
Summary: Rhydian was once a sweet girl, but her time in the wasteland has slowly changed that. A serious injury forces her to enlist the help of Jericho. Can Rhydian manage to hold on to the last shred of humanity she has while battling side by side with an angry ex-raider with a soul of evil? Main Characters: Lone Wanderer, Jericho, Freddie Gomez, and Butch DeLoria.
1. Chapter One

Intense sobbing caught Rhydian's attention. She listened closely to see if she could decipher where it was coming from. Disturbing sentences followed the crying as Rhydian tip-toed toward the sobbing.

"I eat brain first. Make me smarter."

"You dumb. Nothing make you smarter. I eat eyes first. Make me see better."

Rhydian could easily tell by the deep gurgling tone of the voices that it was two super mutants who were carrying on a conversation. The severe lack of grammar and intellect that laced the sentences only confirmed her suspicions.

"Grandma, what large eyes you have!" One of them crowed, causing them to erupt into a fit of cackles.

Rhydian found it interesting that they knew that sentence. She wondered if they knew the whole story of Little Red Riding Hood or if only just bits and pieces of it remained lodged into their irradiated brains.

"What's this?" One of them asked at the same time as a man started shrieking.

"That hair, stupid!" The other supermutant answered and a smacking sound followed.

Rhydian didn't know why, but she found the thought of a supermutant pulling someone's hair rather comical. She snickered as she tip-toed closer toward them.

"Pretty! I eat it and grow some!"

"Eat now!" The other one yelled, clearly growing impatient.

"Well, it's now or never," Rhydian told herself, running around the tent and to the entrance. She dropped her pack outside the doorway and stood next to it, so she could grab another weapon if the need arose.

"Aaahhh! Human!" A supermutant shouted struggling to load his assault rifle. "You die!"

He took a few shells to the face to the face from her scattergun without blinking. She sidestepped, narrowly missing a bullet, and she thanked God that supermutants had terrible aim. She shot him once more in the face. He dropped his gun and exclaimed in agony. She took this chance to grab her combat knife and hurl it at his head. That was enough to send him hurling into the dark oblivion of death.

An eerie quiet spread. She walked in the tent, carefully searching for the second supermutant. Her head exploded in horrendous pain as she fell face first into the dirt. She rolled over just in time to miss being hit a second time by the sledgehammer in the supermutant's hands.

She'd been hit too hard in the head to immediately stand up, so she fired from the comfort of the ground. A couple of shots fatally wounded the supermutant. He stumbled forward.

"Oh, no, no, no," Rhydian whimpered, struggling to stand before the supermutant fell. She didn't make it. In all other instances, a supermutant falling over and dying would be a good thing. However, the massive giant fell directly on top of Rhydian.

"Oh, son of a bitch," she wheezed, struggling to pull herself from beneath the giant's body. She was convinced that if the supermutants started tackling people and wailing on them, no one would survive a supermutant attack.

She finally managed to pull herself from beneath the giant. As she stood up, she wobbled a bit before the dizziness dissipated. Blood was smeared on the ground where her head had rested. She ran her hand over the back of her head and felt mush.

"Oh, please don't let that be my brain," she muttered, fingering the wound. She felt something hard and gave it a tap. It was completely solid. Thankfully, her skull was still intact, but she knew it wasn't good idea to roam around the wasteland with her skull peeking out at everybody.

She walked over to her pack and threw miscellaneous odds and ends out of it. Her hand rested on the 10 mm pistol that Amata had given her. She pulled it from her pack along with an extra clip of ammunition.

She walked toward the frightened man in the tent. He was on his knees, his legs and hands tied behind him. She set the pistol down beside him and untied the dirty, frightened man.

"Thank you! I thought those motherfuckers were going to kill me for sure. You saved me! Thank you so much!"

He threw his arms around her quickly, still whispering gratitude in her ear. Rhydian smiled, ignoring the awful stench coming from him.

"Here, take this! You need it more than I do!" He said excitedly, holding out a jet inhaler.

"No, you keep it. Take this," she said, handing him the pistol and ammunition from the ground.

He thanked her and ran out the door quickly as she sat down at the table to rest.

"Oh, my head," she groaned, rubbing the back of her throbbing skull. She angrily threw the ashtray from the table at the dead supermutant's head. "Why can't you things just be nice?"

She pulled up her pipboy menu, groaning when the light intensified her headache. Light sensitivity wasn't always a serious thing, but the extent of hers was unsettling.

It was only a little after five. She'd definitely have time to make it to Rivet City before dark. She didn't mind traveling in the dark. Traveling in the dark with a busted head is what made the difference.

She started putting her things back in her pack when something she saw crushed her heart into a million pieces. A lump settled in her throat as she picked up Jonas' lab coat from the ground. She ran her fingers over the bullet hole in the breast pocket.

She immediately grabbed her pack and turned it over. Sure enough, a bullet had grazed her pack. Tears filled her eyes as she stared at the lab coat. There were bloodstains on it from when Jonas' had been killed.

_A bullet hole is different, _she thought as she held the coat close. She knew the bullet hole was her fault and that made her feel as if she'd killed Jonas all over again.

She dug through her pack, examining everything closely. She'd hoped the bullet hadn't hit anything else important. A sharp pain ran up her arm as she yanked her hand back out of her pack. She thought she'd run her hand across a knife until she saw the glass stuck in her hand.

"Oh, please, no," she sobbed, pulling out the broken and shattered picture frame. The picture was of Rhydian and her father on her tenth birthday. She'd just gotten a BB gun. Jonas had taken the picture.

The bullet had only gone through the corner of the photograph, sparing both of their faces. She let out a sigh of relief, but wished the whole frame had been saved.

She packed her things away and started walking in the direction of Rivet City. On the way, she couldn't chase away the thoughts of Jonas and her father. She missed them both dearly. She wished she'd been there when her father escaped. She'd have saved Jonas.

She couldn't search for her father yet. She didn't have enough caps to fund her expedition and she didn't expect him to actually be in Vault 112 anyway. She was told he was at the Galaxy News Radio station and he wasn't there. Three Dog told her he was in Rivet City. He wasn't there. Doctor Li told her he was at the Jefferson Memorial. He wasn't there. His holotape had said he'd be in Vault 112 and she didn't think he'd be there either.

A howl broke her away from her thoughts. A rabid, mangy dog bee lined for her from the side of the road. She cocked her shotgun and blew his head off. For some reason, she felt bad about killing the wasteland dogs. She knew she had to, but she wished she had a dog of her own.

She sighed, walking over to what the dog had been chewing on. It was the captive wastelander that she'd rescued. He'd walked half a mile just to get mauled by a dog- _a dog._ She ruined Jonas' lab coat and her picture for _nothing_.

She loomed over the wastelander's body. His guts were lying on the ground next to him and bloody covered the ground like it had been poured there from a jug. She jumped when the wastelander coughed.

"Help me," he pleaded weakly.

"What is your name?" She asked coldly as she stared down at him.

"Doug," he choked weakly. "Why? Please, help me."

"I did," she stated harshly. "I sacrificed the only two things I give a shit about because of you! I just wanted to know your name before I put you out of your misery."

She didn't give him a chance to question her before she caved his head in with her foot. She couldn't help but wishing that she'd just walked on by when she'd heard his screams earlier. That was all for nothing.

She made it to Rivet City just after nightfall. She'd have made better timing if she hadn't stopped to cry over Jonas' coat. The stars lit her pathway across the bridge.

"Welcome to Rivet City, keep your nose clean," Harkness greeted her as she reached the edge of the bridge.

"I don't suppose that Doctor Preston is still working, right?" She asked as she approached him. "I kind of need him."

"Is it serious?" Harkness asked, checking the safety on his rifle before it let it hang on his back by the shoulder strap.

"Probably," Rhydian said with a shrug. She motioned toward his flashlight and turned around.

"Holy shit," Harkness muttered under his breath. "Come on. I'll wake Doctor Preston. This is definitely serious. What the hell happened?"

"The big booger hit me with a sledgehammer," Rhydian replied as they made their way to Doctor Preston's room.

"Go watch the bridge, Ramirez," Harkness demanded, pointing at Ramirez, who was leaning against the wall half asleep. "Ramirez, go watch the bridge!"

Ramirez's eyes snapped open quickly and he bolted down the hallway like something was biting him in the rear end.

"Preston, get up! We have a problem!" Harkness exclaimed, banging on Doctor Preston's door.

"I'm coming, Harnkness. Keep your damn drawers on. I swear, if Cantelli has overdosed again, he's going to have to wait until tomorrow," Preston growled as he unlocked his door. "Oh, Rhydian, what a pleasant surprise."

Rhydian could sense the sarcasm in his voice, but she smiled none the less. Her smile didn't falter as Harkness grabbed her shoulder and forcefully spun her around until her back was toward Preston.

"Escort her to the clinic," Preston sighed. "I have to find my glasses. I'll be there in a moment."

"Woah, when did the floor get all watery?" Rhydian asked, noting the sudden change in the texture of the floor.

"Aw, shit," Harkness mumbled as Rhydian passed out on the metal floor.

"Is this your definition of _escorting _my patient?" Preston asked with an agitated sigh as Harkness began to roll her over. "No, don't do that! Are you stupid? You'll get dirt in the wound. Pick her up, you idiot."

Harkness cursed Preston under his breath as he threw Rhydian over his shoulder. He'd never met a doctor in the wasteland who wasn't a complete asshole. When he dropped her on the table, Preston scolded him again.

"Damn it, Harkness! What are you trying to do- break her nose?" Preston rolled her over to make sure her nose wasn't broken. "Your services are no longer needed. Get out while I work."

Harkness walked away in annoyance, mumbling under his breath about Preston being a dick. Doctor Preston heard, but he didn't snap back at Harkness. He had more pressing matters to attend to than a smart-mouthed guard.

Rhydian woke up early the next morning. She jumped out of bed quickly before realizing she was in the Weatherly Hotel. Her head throbbed and she reached back to touch her wound, which was swollen and stitched shut.

"I have a bald spot!" She exclaimed to Doctor Preston once she'd reached the clinic.

"Are you high?" He asked in irritation and she blinked in response.

"Probably," she answered after a thoughtful pause. "There's no telling what kind of drugs you pumped into me."

"I had to shave around the wound in order to stich it closed."

"Well, shave me a mohawk. I don't like the idea of walking around with one bald spot," Rhydian demanded, sitting down in a chair.

"I'm a doctor, not a damn barber!"

"I'll pay you extra. Just do it."

"Don't you think you have more to worry about than a bad haircut?"

"I can handle myself," Rhydian scolded.

"You don't need to be hit in the head again until this heals over. It would be very easy for these stitches to be busted open," Preston advised her as he started shaving the sides of her head.

"Well, next time I'm fighting, I'll spin around in circles so that no one can hit me in the back of the head," Rhydian snickered.

"Have someone travel with you until your stitches heal. Either that, or don't go anywhere."

"The only person who will travel with me is Jericho," she muttered. "I don't think that will be a pleasant trip."

"I'm sure it will be more pleasant than death."

"I don't know about that," Rhydian mumbled beneath her breath.

After Preston finished her mohawk, she set off to Megaton, to enlist the help of Jericho.


	2. Chapter Two

"No way," Jericho snapped. "No fucking way am I traveling with a goody two-shoes vault twerp."

"Listen here, asshole," Rhydian said with narrowed eyes. "I need your fucking help. No one else will travel with me because they think I'm an asshole. So, I just figured that the _other _town asshole would travel with me. I'll give you a thousand caps for supplies. So, are you coming? Or are you too big of a sissy?"

She probably shouldn't have called him an asshole in hindsight. It started an _asshole _war between the two of them during the remainder of the conversation.

"No one calls me a fucking sissy," Jericho growled, slamming his fists against the bar in Moriarty's saloon. "Give me the caps, asshole."

"Go get your supplies, asshole," Rhydian demanded, tossing a bag of caps on the table in front of Jericho.

"You got it, asshole," he replied with a belch as he made his way out of the saloon.

She muttered a silent _asshole _when he walked out the door and he muttered one when he stepped outside. It left both of them thinking that they'd won the war.

"Please don't travel with that scum," Gob pleaded quietly. "He's liable to shoot you in the back."

"I can handle myself, Gob, and he will not. I can handle that grumpy, old sack of garbage. Plus, you can't say anything. He's much safer than Moriarty."

Gob's eyes grew wide. In a paranoid state, he glanced over both shoulders and looked at every dark corner of the room. Once he was sure Moriarty wasn't in hearing distance, he muttered, "I can't argue with that."

"How do you like my mohawk?" Rhydian asked, spinning around in a circle.

Gob's concern didn't fall on her mohawk, but rather the stitches in the back of her head. He knew that she was going to end up dead one day. He knew everyone would, especially in the wasteland, but she was going to end up dead sooner than most.

"What happened?" He asked, motioning to the back of his own head when she stopped twirling around like a loon.

"Oh, it was a fight with a supermutant," she said nonchalantly as she paid for a beer. "So, when are you going to let me get you out of here?"

"The day that you stop roaming the wastes and, like everyone else, never leave town," he said with a grin, knowing that day would never happen.

She chuckled and ran her fingers through her hair. Her hair was a ruby red color. Gob had never seen anyone else with such a color. The people around town made rumors that Rhydian dyed her hair with the blood of her victims.

When she'd first come into town, she was covered in blood. She had admitted that she'd killed a girl named Silver outside of town. Everyone knew Silver. She used to live in Megaton. The fact that Rhydian had killed someone the town knew, to them, it meant that she was a mass murderer.

Rhydian told Gob that Silver went crazy on her, screaming at her about Moriarty. In fact, Rhydian told everyone that. No one really believed her, though. Gob believed her because he'd met a lot of evil assholes in the bar and Rhydian was not one of them.

Nova believed her because she had known Silver quite well. Silver was all strung out on every chem the wasteland had to offer. She'd also stolen some caps from Moriarty. She said she didn't, but she really had. Nova didn't find it a stretch to believe that Silver was overly paranoid.

Jericho believed her. He had seen her enter the gate. He saw the terrified look in her eyes. Pure fear was in her eyes. He would know. He'd seen that look in many wastelanders' and scavengers' eyes in his days of running with raiders. He also knew the whiney vault brat didn't have the balls to commit cold-blooded murder.

"Be careful with him," Gob whispered as Jericho burst through the door.

"Are we goin' or what?" Jericho yelled, stumbling in the door. He nearly took a spill as his foot grazed an empty beer bottle.

Rhydian tried to stifle her laughter, but miserably failed. She laughed so hard that tears sprung to her eyes. Gob didn't laugh with her. He knew better.

"Yes," Rhydian said, smiling as she turned toward Gob. "Gob, I bid you adieu."

Rhydian bowed to him in a playful fashion before skipping out the door with Jericho stomping behind her.

"So, where are we goin'?" Jericho asked grumpily as the two slipped out of Megaton's city gate.

"We are going to kill some raiders," she replied with a cheeky grin. "You see, the school in Springvale is full of them. I could have done it alone, but I had this accident a couple of days ago. The doctor I saw wants me to travel with someone until it heals."

"Or you could have just stayed put," Jericho added as if she hadn't thought of that yet.

"That will _never _happen," she stated almost angrily.

"Strike a nerve?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rhydian replied, her smile returning. "I didn't mean to sound so mean. It's just that I spent nineteen years in a vault."

"Ugh, don't remind me, you pampered asshole," Jericho snarled. He was under the impression that Rhydian was throwing it up in his face not knowing that was the last thing she'd ever do.

"Um, what do you mean? I hated it there. It was cold, dark, and it was tiny. It was maybe the size of Megaton. You can't imagine what it's like to live that long without feeling the sun. I hated life in the vault and I hate staying put because of it. I'm like a horse. I need space to roam."

"What the fuck is a horse?"

"I read about them in textbooks in the vault. They were majestic creatures," she said with a sad smile. The fact that he didn't know what a horse was confirmed her suspicions that they didn't exist anymore.

"Whatever. Which gang is living in the school now? Do you even know?"

"Why would I? They're raiders. I'm not. I don't really have time to ask them questions while we're shooting the shit out of each other. I could ask, but I doubt they would answer."

She lit a cigarette and offered Jericho one. They smoked in silence until Rhydian veered off to the left.

"You're going the wrong way," he informed her. "I've been outta the game for years, but I'm pretty sure the school is just behind that big red sign."

"Do you mean the sign that says _Springvale Elementary_?" She asked with a laugh. "I knew that. I'm heading off this way to store some of my valuables in this house over here. I don't want them to be ruined."

"Like I can fuckin' read," Jericho mumbled beneath his breath. "If I had known that back then, I would have found it more quickly last time I was looking for it."

"What did you go there for?"

"It was where my hazing took place," Jericho remembered fondly. "Those fuckers are all dead by now, I'm sure."

"Oh, well how would you like to learn how to read?"

"Fuck that," Jericho growled at her. "You ain't gonna teach me to read and we ain't gonna fuckin' bond over it neither."

"I just thought I'd offer," she replied, walking into the house and coming back out quickly. "This is where she lived."

"Who?" Jericho asked in annoyance. He wished she'd shut up. He didn't come out here to talk and have fun with this brat. He came out here to kill some people and make some caps.

"Silver lived there. My vault is right over there," she said, pointing toward a cluster of hills in the distance. "When I first came out of there, her house was the first place I stumbled into. And, well… you know the rest."

Jericho flicked his cigarette across the pavement and rummaged through his supply bag. When his hand emerged from the worn out duffle bag, it was holding a bottle of whiskey. He lifted it to his lips to take a swig.

The bottle blocked out Rhydian's view of the sun. The amber liquid resting in the bottle seemed to glow warningly as Jericho chugged it.

Unseen by Jericho, Rhydian shook her head. Whiskey was trouble. She was sure that the glow was a warning to anyone who might like to drown themselves in it. She'd rather drown in her sorrows than in a bottle of whiskey.

Jericho couldn't have cared less. It didn't matter to him if God, himself, told Jericho that whiskey was the devil. He'd drink it anyway. That's just the way Jericho was. His limited ways of thinking lead him to believe that whiskey was his best friend.

Rhydian made a mental note to stay as far as she could away from the bottle. She knew how easy it would be for her to turn to whiskey. She had no mother and really, if she thought about it, she had no father either. The people she'd known all her life tried to kill her. It would be easy for Rhydian to turn to whiskey to chase away her problems. She wouldn't take the easy way out, though.

"Look out. The top of the school would be a good fuckin' spot for a sniper," Jericho said loudly, tossing his empty whiskey bottle to the ground.

"Yeah, let's shout it out and alert them," Rhydian whispered harshly.

Rhydian wasn't used to traveling with anyone. She was used to being able to be completely quiet. She figured Jericho wasn't much for being stealthy and that was definitely going to cramp her style a bit.

"We ain't never going to get into that vault," a raider said loudly. "These diggers ain't worth a shit."

"I'm coming for you!" Jericho shouted loudly as he ran around the corner. "You're going to bleed to death!"

_So much for being stealthy, _Rhydian thought as she ran around the corner with her shotgun in tow.

She hit the dirt as she rounded the corner and narrowly missed taking a baseball bat to the face. She squeezed a shot off and blew the raider's head to pieces. One shot, one kill. That's how she liked it. That made it easy to clear the battlefield.

Jericho was running around in pit below, firing magazine after magazine at the raiders above. He wasn't even trying to preserve ammunition. At this rate, he'd be spending a thousand caps a week on ammunition.

_That must be the whiskey;_ Rhydian snickered at this thought as she snuck up the stairs. She crept up slowly behind the raider and shot him in the back of the head with her shotgun. He tumbled forward, falling into the pit with Jericho.

Rhydian stood up and peered over the edge. The raider was dead, no doubt about that. Jericho turned him over and Rhydian had to resist the urge to smile at the sight. The raider's face had been completely blown off and pieces of his brain sat where his face once had.

"Two points for me," Rhydian said with a grin, "and zero for Jericho."

"We ain't keepin' fuckin' score," Jericho growled angrily as he stared at Rhydian's kill. He had to admit, the kid was a better fighter than he had expected. _She can take care of herself, _he thought, _even if she is too big of a pussy to go in guns blazing._

"So," Rhydian started, still leaning over the edge, "I guess we'll never get to be stealthy, huh?"

"That shit is for wimps," Jericho stated without skipping a beat. He looked up at Rhydian in time to see a raider looming behind her. "Jump, kid!"

Rhydian obeyed without stopping to ask why. As soon as she leapt over the edge, Jericho threw a grenade. She tucked and rolled when she hit the ground and she could feel the vibrations of the explosion beneath her.

"Nice save, old man," she said with a satisfied grin, "and here I thought your aim was for shit."

"Oh, shut the fuck up. I can aim when I wanna," he growled through clenched teeth. "We gonna get this show on the road or what?"

"Yeah, hold on," she said as she dug through her bag. She put her sawed-off shotgun away and pulled out her combat shotgun. "If we're going to go in there running and gunning, I need a bigger gun."


	3. Chapter Three

"So, what do you think they meant about getting into the vault?" Rhydian asked as they stepped through the doors of the school.

"Why do you care? The vault tried to kill you," Jericho added half-heartedly.

"As if I forgot," Rhydian said quietly as she looked around. "Just forget it."

"Be glad to. I'm gonna rip you apart!" Jericho screamed as he ran through a door and down the hallway causing Rhydian to jump.

"I think I was safer alone," Rhydian sighed and shook her head as she ran after him.

"You're all gonna die!" Jericho yelled, blasting the hallways full of bullets.

"Take the raiders! I got the dogs," Rhydian informed him. She didn't want Jericho wasting several clips on a couple of dogs.

"Fuck the dogs!"

"I'm sorry," Rhydian said quietly before putting a bullet in each of the dogs' brains. "Why can't you just be friendly?"

A male raider ran out of bullets in the middle of the firefight. He threw his assault rifle to the floor and snatched a shotgun out of a female raider's hands.

"Lawrence, you are a fucking asshole!" She yelled before retreating down the hallway.

"No one gets out alive, bitch!" Rhydian yelled as she tore down the hallway after the raider.

"That's the spirit," Jericho laughed as he continued to unload on the thieving raider. "Kill 'em all."

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Rhydian sang as she stepped down the hallway. "You can't hide from me."

Rhydian could feel herself becoming darker. For a long time, she felt bad for the raiders. She felt terrible for all the lost souls that eventually became raiders, but along the way she started hating them. She started to like seeing them die. Blasting them full of bullets made her happy now.

She walked through an open doorway to be met with gunfire. She jumped back and used the doorway for cover. She peered around to see three raiders with assault rifles firing at her. The female raider who lost her gun earlier stood behind them laughing.

A bullet whizzed by her head and she could feel the air off it on her face. She pulled her head back around the doorway and put her back to the wall. She dropped her pack next to her and pulled out a grenade. She pulled the pin and threw the grenade in the room.

As it exploded, chairs, desks, and various limbs flew out of the doorway. Blood splattered against Rhydian's legs as body parts made impact with the wall across from her. A head rolled across the floor. The mouth was wide open and the eyes were popped open in fear. This made her grin.

"I heard the explosion," Jericho said, coming down the hallway. "Did you get overwhelmed?"

"No," Rhydian answered with a sweet smile, "I just like things that go boom."

"You better hope you didn't melt their gear."

"Aw, shit, I didn't even think about that, Jerry," Rhydian replied as Jericho was walking by.

Jericho immediately halted and spun to face her. "Don't ever fuckin' call me that again," he growled, pointing an angry finger at her.

She grinned as she walked past him and started going through the raiders' loot. Her eyes wandered from the scattered body parts to the terminal against the wall. She smiled at the terminal. She loved going through them. Sometimes, when she was lucky, she found documents from before the war.

"Finish looting them," she told Jericho as she turned on the terminal. "Aw, hell, I doubt these are prewar documents. I'm pretty sure the person who used this terminal was a raider and _not _a school employee."

"How do you know?" Jericho asked absentmindedly as he lit a cigarette he'd found on the ground.

"The name of the user is _suk me hahaha, _suck being spelled without a _c._"

Jericho about died laughing at her sentence. He wasn't really laughing at the name on the terminal, but at hearing a girl say _suck me._

Rhydian ignored his laughing as she combed through the documents on the terminal. According to the terminal, the raiders were trying to dig an underground tunnel into the vault. Raiders were so stupid. That plan never would have worked.

"We've got ants on the lower level," she informed Jericho, as she picked up the books off of the terminal desk.

Jericho mumbled and gurgled as he tried to talk to her while chugging a half-empty bottle of whiskey. From what Rhydian could gather, he asked her how she would know such a thing.

"_Suk me," _she began, referring to the user on the terminal, "wrote that he and the others were trying to dig a tunnel to the vault. They planned to blow their way into the vault using explosives. They came across a colony of ants instead."

"Smart idea," Jericho replied, adding a relatively unattractive belch after his sentence.

"No, it isn't, brainiac" she scoffed. "Vault 101, just like all the other vaults, was built to withstand a nuclear war. Why would mines and explosives do what a nuclear war failed to do?"

"Shut the fuck up and let's go kill some ants."

Rhydian hummed as she walked alongside Jericho. James used to sing the song to her as a child and it always stuck with her. The song made her feel calm, but also sad. It made her think of James and Jonas.

For a moment, Jericho forgot who and where he was. The calming tune emitting from Rhydian's throat made him feel complete serenity. The lit cigarette in his hand slipped through his fingers. The embers scattered from the cherry and died against the cold, tile floor.

"_Who can say where the road goes, where the day flows? Only time," _Rhydian sang quietly, forgetting about her surroundings. For a moment, she imagined that she was back in the vault. She felt as if Jonas was still alive and James had never left.

"_And who can say if your love grows as your heart chose? Only time."_

Rhydian stopped singing when she noticed a Nuka Cola Quantum on a cage on the lower floor. She leapt over to retrieve it and nearly lost her footing. She tossed the Quantum to Jericho who put it away.

"Oh, no," she whispered, resisting the urge to vomit. "The kids were here."

"What?" Jericho shouted, unable to hear her mumbles.

"The kids," she said louder, albeit not much louder, "they were here when the bombs hit."

The sight below her took her stomach. The skulls, ribcages, and vertebraes of small children rested in the cage below her. In her upset state of mind, she fell backwards off of the metal cage.

"Oh, fuck," she moaned from the floor. Her head felt as if it was expanding at an alarming rate. She turned her head to the side and felt the back of it. When she looked at her fingertips, blood coated them.

She'd managed to rip her stitches open. When she removed her hand from in front of her face, her eyes aligned perfectly with the skull of a small child. She felt as if she was going to be sick. The kid couldn't have been much older than five or six.

"Get up, kid," Jericho commanded, jumping down next to her. "It wasn't that far of a fall. Don't be a pussy."

"I landed on my head," she told him, pinching the bridge of her nose in an attempt to clear away her headache. "I think I busted my stitches open."

"Get up," Jericho demanded again. He yanked her up by the arm and she yelped. "We are going to finish clearing out this school."

"Okay," she mumbled woozily as he handed her bag to her. "Let's head for the lower levels."

She tried to start her humming back up, but it made her head swim. Everything ahead of her seemed to sway in some endless gust of wind. She knew her broken head was playing tricks on her, that she was merely hallucinating.

"You good?" Jericho asked after a long while. He didn't attempt to look at her when he asked and he didn't look at her when she answered, either.

"I'm fabulous," she commented sarcastically before putting on a serious face. "I'll be fine. I'm just a little bit woozy. It'll pass."

"Good."

She licked her lips as they descended down a small flight of stairs. She had cottonmouth for a reason unknown to her. She assumed it had to do with her busted head. Other than thinking about the annoyance of it, she completely ignored it.

When they passed through the door, Jericho took off like a bat out of Hell. He tore down the hallways, spitting threats and curse words at the raiders he ran into.

Rhydian tried to keep up, but her dizziness kept her from doing so. Instead, she stumbled into another room and nearly tumbled down an underground cave. A series of clicks seemed to echo from the darkness of the cave.

She walked slowly into the cave, her gun at the ready. The clicks seemed to grow ever nearer. She flipped on her pipboy light as an ant passed over her foot. She screamed and shot it quickly. She _hated _ants. She hated anything with more than four legs.

Clicking continued down the cave hallway and she reluctantly followed. She reloaded her gun in time to fire at a second and third ant. Further down, she could see a cluster of them, huddled together and unaware of her presence.

She laid down a series of frag mines, pulse mines, and plasma mines. Carefully, she sidestepped them and walked straight for the ants. She whistled to get their attention. When they started for her, she ran, carefully hopping over the mines.

She reached the end of the cave and dove as the mines began to explode behind her. The only thing she could hear over the exploding was the squealing and squeaking of the dying ants. One by one, she heard them all die.

Something landed on her back and she waited to make sure the explosions were over before rolling over. She came face to face with the dead ant on top of her and she screamed bloody murder. She slapped it away quickly and breathed a sigh of relief.

The scouted to the end of the tunnels to make sure that she'd killed all the ants. Luckily she had because she didn't want to come face to face with another ant. She couldn't stand them. Something about a thing having more than four legs freaked the living hell out of her.

She stumbled back out of the cave and came face to face with Jericho. Blood covered his armor, head, and face. She yawned and pointed at the blood covering him.

"That's not yours right?"

He responded with a shake of his head and a yawn of his own. "Anything in that tunnel?"

"Not anymore," she said as she lay down on the floor. "We'll camp here. I don't feel like walking back to Megaton tonight."

Jericho sat down on another mattress and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He took a sip as he leaned against the wall. The wall felt cool against the back of his head. The droplets of sweat that sat on the back of his head turned cold as they touched the wall.

"When you plannin' on goin' after your dad?"

Rhydian sighed as she stared up at the ceiling. His question was a heavy one, laced with many emotions that she didn't feel coming face to face with right now. He had left her and she wasn't sure if she really wanted to go after him anymore. Why should she?

He abandoned her. He left her in that vault and she almost died because of his stupid pipe dream. Everyone turned on her. All the guards other than Mr. Gomez tried to kill her. Vault citizens screamed at her as she passed by.

James knew he would never be able to gain entrance to Vault 101 again. When he left, he had never expected to see her again. He didn't _want _to see her again or he would have stayed. He could have even taken her with him, but he didn't.

Jonas died because of him and she wasn't really sure she could ever forgive him for that. She wanted to hate him for it, but she couldn't. At the very least she wanted him to know all the effects that his actions had caused. That was almost reason enough for her to find him.

Maybe she'd find him, tell him how everyone tried to kill her and that Jonas was dead because of him. Maybe she'd do that. Then she'd leave and never see him again.

He didn't know she was out of the vault and he never expected to see her again. He'd be none the wiser if she never went after him. Then a thought occurred to her that he had to know she was loose. If he listened to Galaxy News Radio, he knew.

Three Dog would not stop rambling about her on the radio. He thought she was some kind of saint. Everyone in Megaton hated her. They despised her and thought she was a killer, but Three Dog didn't. He praised her.

"Fuck my dad," she answered before falling asleep on the bloodstained mattress.

When Jericho was sure she was asleep, he crept over and examined the back of her head. He poured some whiskey on it, attempting to disinfect it.

"Fuckin' waste of whiskey," he scolded himself.

He couldn't see the wound too well and he didn't have a flashlight. He glanced at Rhydian's pipboy. He knew there was a light on that thing. If only he could figure out how to turn it on. He pressed a button, hoping it was the light.

"_Hey, everybody! It's Three Dog! Awoooooo!"_

Jericho nearly shit his pants when the loudmouthed DJ screamed from the pipboy. Thinking on his feet, he scrambled back over to his mattress and pretended to be asleep.

"_Three Dog, you ask. Has that crazy kid from Vault 101 found her father yet? Tick, tock, tick, tock. Survey says…. No. _

_"But, Three Dog, you say. I saw that kid entering the school in Springvale with an old man. _

_"Well, Children, that old man is _not_ her father. Maybe they ducked inside the school for a little alone time if you know what I mean, heh, heh, heh._

_"101 has not managed to find her father as of yet. Well, here's rooting for you, 101! If anyone knows anything about James' whereabouts, please contact 101 or Ol' Three Dog. More on this story as it develops."_

Jericho wanted to march on over to Galaxy News Radio to pummel the shit out of Three Dog for calling him an old man and insisting that he'd want any kind of relationship with the 101 brat.

"If you wanted to listen to music, all you had to do was ask," Rhydian commented, turning over to look at Jericho.

She bit her lip, realizing she was asleep. Her pipboy would never malfunction, so she assumed she'd rolled over on the radio button in her sleep. She didn't bother to turn it off. Instead, she fell asleep listening to the soothing music emitting from the radio.


	4. Chapter Four

Rhydian woke up early the next morning. She slowly made her way into the hallway, careful not to wake Jericho. She flipped on her pipboy light and began walking the abandoned hallways of the old schoolhouse, the music from her pipboy keeping her company.

_Times have changed,_

_And we've often rewound the clock,_

_Since the Puritans got a shock,_

_When they landed on Plymouth Rock._

_If Today,_

_Any shock they should try to stem,_

_'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,_

_Plymouth Rock would land on them._

Rhydian danced down the hallway as she listened to the radio. She picked through the random objects scattered across the floor. She picked up stimpacks, radaway, and various food items. She didn't move like a normal person. While she listened to the radio, she danced while she did everything.

_In olden days, a glimpse of stocking,_

_Was looked upon as something shocking,_

_But, now, God knows,_

_Anything Goes_

She thought that maybe Amata should listen to this song. Amata became sort of a whore when they hit seventeen. She screwed Butch DeLoria, Paul Hannon, and Wally Mack within the same week. In fact, she continued screwing the three of them.

It's not like Rhydian cared, really. She just thought it was funny. She and Amata were friends when they were ten. After that, they weren't. They weren't even really friends before that, either. Amata began screwing the vault while Rhydian mostly stuck to herself.

Rhydian hung out with Butch DeLoria a little bit, but only if it was the two of them alone. Butch was a complete dick to her when anyone else was around, especially Paul or Wally. Hell, she'd even lost her virginity to Butch and she really regretted that now.

She hung out with Freddie Gomez quite a bit, too. If they were alone, Freddie really came out of his shell. If other people were around, he wouldn't talk to her much. He was an easy target for Butch. Freddie was a sheep, someone easily to push around.

Butch was a wolf. He prayed upon the souls of the innocent.

She picked up an issue of _Grognak the Barbarian _from the ground and smirked. When she was ten, she had a huge crush on Freddie Gomez. She'd asked Amata at her tenth birthday if she'd gotten Rhydian a date with him. Amata then basically said he was as ugly as Grognak the Barbarian. It was funny now. Then, it made her angry.

She sang along with the next song, it being her favorite.

_"Into each life some rain must fall, _

_"But too much is falling in mine._

_"Into each heart, some tears must fall,_

_"But some day the sun will shine."_

She felt as if this song was made for her specifically. She humored herself by wondering if she'd written it in a past life.

_"Some folks can lose, _

_"The blues in their hearts_

_"But when I think of you,_

_"Another shower starts."_

Jericho watched from the doorway as the vault kid danced around the room. He thought only of how stupid the kid was. The stupid, little brat was going to get herself killed. It would be extremely easy for a raider to blow her silly head off while she was dancing around like that.

How dare she do that with him traveling with her? If she got killed out here because she was acting like an idiot, the whole town would blame _him. _Never mind the fact that most of them thought she was a serial killer. If he came back without her, they'd all assume that he killed her.

It wasn't as if he really gave a shit. Everyone hated him anyway. It was more about the fact that everyone already talked shit about him. He knew if they thought he killed this twerp, they'd talk even more shit. It was hard enough for him not to shoot the shit-talkers. It would be even harder if they started talking worse about him.

"Are you fuckin' stupid?" He asked abruptly.

Rhydian's heart stopped for a moment before she realized it was Jericho. For a moment, she'd mistaken him for a raider. Her face turned a deep shade of red when she turned around. Her cheeks turned such a color that it nearly matched her hair color.

"It's a good thing you're awake," she said in a serious tone, completely ignoring his question. "I am so ready to leave this dump. I've already gathered any valuable loot. I was thinking we'd head up north. I was hoping we'd find a nearby settlement to trade with."

"Fuck that. Let's hit Megaton first to sell this loot and buy some supplies. See Doc Church while we're there," Jericho snarled at her.

"I see you're not a morning person. Actually, I don't think you're an _any time of day _type of person. I suppose you're right. I really need to see a doctor."

"That ain't why we're goin'," Jericho interrupted harshly. "We're going so that I can get some more supplies. Since we'll already be there, you could stop by the clinic."

"Whatever you say, Jerry," Rhydian added with a wicked grin as she ran by Jericho and headed for the door.

He wasn't sure why she thought that was so damned funny. He despised that name and wanted to punch her in the face every time she used it. He grumpily followed behind her, kicking over every table and chair that he passed by.

On the way back to Megaton, Jericho continued to gulp down whiskey. Rhydian wondered how much of the startup fee she gave to him went to whiskey. She guessed that half of it went to whiskey, a fourth of it went to cigarettes, and the last fourth went toward actual supplies.

She pulled a beer out of her bag and took a few sips. Her head was really starting to hurt. She figured that a few beers would help her with the pain. She wondered how silly it seemed to other people that she'd drink beer, but wouldn't touch any sort of liquor.

She continued to sip on her beer and it continued to help her with the pain. She chugged the last half and she could feel Jericho staring at her out of the corner of her eye. When she was done, she put the bottle back in her pack.

"So the spoiled vault kid drinks. How do ya like that?" He spoke as if he was almost impressed with her, but then his face went sour again. "Why the fuck did you put the bottle back in your bag?"

"I don't want to litter," she answered as she cracked another beer open.

"That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard!" Jericho shouted, making Rhydian jump again. "Look around you, you little bitch. There's trash and shit everywhere."

Rhydian glared at him as she held the bottle up to her lips. His attitude was really starting to bother her. Even she could only take so much name calling and so many insults.

"Do you know why it's like that?" She asked through narrowed eyes. "It's like that because of too many assholes like you just throwing their garbage around willy nilly! If everyone was like me, the wasteland wouldn't be such a bad place."

"You're wrong about that," Jericho growled, throwing his empty whiskey bottle on the ground right in front of her. "The wasteland is better off without pampered assholes like you."

She'd had enough of him. She chugged the rest of her beer while giving him a death stare. When she felt the last of the warm liquid go down her throat, she gripped the bottle tightly. She chunked it at his head without a second thought.

This wasn't the first bottle Jericho had thrown at his head. He quickly ducked it. To Rhydian's surprise, he began to laugh at her. He laughed harder at her attempt to hurt him. He wanted to get under her skin. Hell, he wanted to get underneath everyone's skin. To succeed at it only made him happy.

They walked for a little ways before Rhydian turned a 180 and ran in the other direction. Jericho watched in amazement as she grabbed the bottle she'd thrown at him and neatly tucked it away in her bag of things. He remained speechless and bewildered by her stupid act of morality all the way back to Megaton.

"Here," she told him, handing him her bag as they walked through Megaton's gates. "Go sell this stuff. You keep half and give me the other half. I'm going to Doc Church's."

Jericho didn't say anything as he took Rhydian's bag. She was such a stupid kid. He was amazed that she trusted him to do this. He was surprised that she didn't think he would cheat her out of her half.

_I can't believe she doesn't think I'll cheat her out of her half. That's exactly what I'm going to do, _Jericho thought to himself as he ascended the ramp up to Craterside Supply.

"You'd better be pretty damn hurt to bother me," Doc Church said in annoyance as Rhydian walked in the clinic.

"Does this count?" She asked, spinning around to show him the back of her head.

"I suppose," Doc Church said, slightly less annoyed. He still didn't think it was good enough reason for her to come bother him. He'd seen much worse in his time as a doctor. He really didn't have time for a spoiled brat to come to him every time she scraped her knee.

"I thought doctors were supposed to be nice and caring," Rhydian told him as he began stitching up the back of her head. She winced slightly.

"You better watch the way you talk to me," Doc Church replied with an irritated sigh. He couldn't help but smell the whiskey in her hair. He wasn't surprised. She did travel with Jericho after all.

"No, seriously, every wasteland doctor I met so far isn't very nice. In fact, you're all cocks, doctor." She let a wild grin cover her face. "I'm going to start calling you all _cocktors. _You get it? Doctor, _cockter…"_

Doc Church almost smiled at this, but only almost. Instead, he jabbed her rather hard with his needle. He muttered an apology for the accidental slip even though it had been done on purpose. To finish, he stuck a stimpak into the wound.

"I'd tell you not to travel until it's fully healed if I really cared," Doc Church told her, holding his hand out to receive payment. "250 caps."

"Oh," Rhydian replied quietly. "I'd have told you I was out of caps when I came in if I really cared."

She could swear she almost saw steam come out of Doc Church's ears. She gave a devious grin before handing over the caps and walking out of the clinic.

She started walking up to Moriarty's to talk to Gob when a hand grabbed her shoulder. She spun around quickly to face Lucas Simms.

"Oh, hey, Sheriff," she greeted him with a smile. "What can I do for you?"

"I hear you're smart," Simms said with the same threatening tone he always used. "I hear you're good with technology and explosives."

"I guess."

"Could you disarm the bomb in the middle of town for me?"

"Holy shit!" Rhydian exclaimed with a look of shock on her face. She stared wide-eyed at Simms and then at the bomb. "That fucking thing is still active?"

"Watch your language, missy," he scolded. "We have children running around."

"I'm sorry. Yeah, I'll disarm your bomb. No sweat. I'll do it before I leave town again."

"You aren't going to ask about your reward?" The sheriff asked her with a look of concern. "That seems like the first thing a wasteland type like you would ask."

"Nope, I wasn't planning on it. I'll talk to you when it's done, Simms."

She broke away from him, heading toward Moriarty's bar. She cursed Simms under her breath. She knew exactly what he meant by _wasteland type. _He meant, _crazy killer._ Sometimes she wished she could walk around town and punch every asshole like him in the face.

"So, how'd it go with Jericho?" Gob asked as she sat down across from him at the bar. "I'm glad to see that you made it back alive."

"I told you that I'd be okay," she said with a small smile. "It went good. His wisecracks don't really bother me."

"That's good. I hope that was your only trip with him."

"No," Rhydian said with a shake of her head. "I busted my head open again. So, it's me and Jericho until it heals."

"You can't get someone else to go with you?"

"Are you kidding?" She chuckled at this. "You know how everyone thinks of me around here. No one would go with me."

"I would if I could," Gob added, hoping to take her mind off of the assholes in town.

"You're too soft, Gob." She poked his belly and grinned. "Jericho's not so bad. I mean, he's like sixty. You can't expect him not to be bitchy."

Gob was much older than Jericho and he wasn't bitchy. He kept that to himself though. He found it nice that Rhydian always tried to find the good in people despite the fact that most of the town practically hated her.

"So, where is Jericho?"

"He's selling the loot we acquired."

"Wait, what?" Gob felt as if he was talking to someone who was mentally challenged. "You let him sell all your loot? He's going to cheat you."

"No, he won't," Rhydian replied with a chuckle. "I trust people, Gob."

"That's a good way to get killed out there." Gob shook his head at her as Jericho walked in the door.

"Well, well, looks like the vault twerp is already here," Jericho muttered as he sat down at the bar. "I'm having drinks before we leave. Here are your caps."

Rhydian thanked him as she put the bag of caps in her supply bag. She sipped on her beer and listened idly to the other bar goers' conversations. That is, until she heard Nova's conversation with a customer.

"So, I guess the twerp has probably been talking shit while she's been here," Jericho scoffed, downing his shot. He almost swallowed the whole shot glass along with the liquor.

"Actually," Gob began as he polished a dirty glass, "she was saying how you weren't so bad after all."

"While she's in here playing the victim, did she mention that she threw a bottle at my fuckin' head?"

It took all of Gob's self-control not to snicker at the thought of Rhydian throwing a bottle at Jericho's head.

"He asked for it," Rhydian said with a shrug. "Look, I've got some things to take care of. Gob, I might not see you before I leave again. Don't let Moriarty beat you too bad. I'm going to kill him one day, I swear it."

"You got a thing for the ghoul?" Jericho snickered, taking a swig from his whiskey bottle.

"No, you narcissistic asshole," Rhydian spouted angrily. It made her angry to think that you couldn't do something nice for someone without being accused of having a hard-on for said person. "I fucking hate anyone who abuses any other living thing."

"So, you're going to kill me? Did I hear that right, lass?"

Rhydian knew that accent anywhere. Her jaw and fists clenched as she spun around to face Moriarty. She stared at him with a look that was almost strong enough to make him spontaneously combust.

"If you don't keep your fucking hands off of your employees, then yeah, I will." She took a menacing step toward Moriarty.

"You're one to talk," Moriarty told her with a shit-eating grin. "I hear you're quite the murderer. Has this rotting bag of brahmin shit been running his mouth?"

"You know you hit him Moriarty. Don't play the fucking fool. I've seen the bruises."

"Oh, really now? You are aware that everyone hits him. Are you not?"

"They hit him because you let them, you old coward. You know he won't fight back. You make it look cool to hit him and degrade him, so everyone else does it, too. You do it because you're a coward."

"I am no such thing, lass. I don't think you really know just who I am."

"You're not?" She asked with a laugh. "Then why don't you hit me? Why don't you hit Jericho? You know we'll fight back and probably kill your old ass."

"You'd better watch your mouth, lass."

"Aren't you supposed to be protecting her?" Gob asked Jericho. "Isn't that what she's paying you for? Get up and do something!"

"I protect her in the wasteland. Not here. Here, I fucking drink. Shut the fuck up and let me drink, zombie."

"I'll get him out of here one day," Rhydian said warningly as she left the bar.


	5. Chapter Five

Rhydian crept up close to the bomb, careful not to let the nearby worshippers see her. She didn't feel like dealing with them. They'd throw a hissy fit if they knew that she was going to disarm the bomb. They could still worship it if it was deactivated.

She worked quietly and by the light of the moon. She cut the necessary wires and spliced other wires. She popped the frame off of the control box. She slipped her hand inside and quietly dug around in the nuke.

_Is that you? _She wondered as her fingers grazed over something that kind of felt like the nuclear combustion reactor. She decided it would be best to let her fingers wander a bit more before she unhitched the _'reactor' _from its post.

_Oh, no. What the hell is that? _Her fingers grazed over something that felt like another reactor. _There's another one? What is going on here? _Her fingers grazed over a total of four bulbs that all felt like nuclear combustion reactors.

She'd never had trouble like this with electronics before. She'd worked on bombs before. Even if they were smaller, they were still bombs. For a moment, she almost wished James was there helping her. If anyone could figure out what was going on with the reactors, it was him.

_Well,_ she thought as she bypassed the second control box, _desperate times call for desperate measures. _She peered around to make sure no one was looking before she hoisted herself up and slipped inside the nuke.

"There you are, you pesky menace," she whispered, staring at the reactor before realizing she saw another one in her peripheral vision. She figured out what she was up against. She'd been taught about things like this before.

Jonas and James had told her about nukes and bombs that were built with false nuclear combustion reactors. They were built to stop people like her. To disarm the nuke, she'd have to pull the real nuclear combustion reactor. If she happened to pull a false one…. _boom_.

She turned on her pipboy light and began to examine one of the bulbs. As if she were in a cliché novel, she felt sweat run down her forehead and chest from the stress. She decided that the reactor was a false one, given that it had one more coil than she'd seen on other reactors.

_If I'd have known it was going to be this difficult, I'd have told Simms to shove it up his arrogant ass, _she thought as she examined a second bulb. _Oh, who am I kidding? No, I wouldn't have._

A pair of Megaton settlers sat down beside the puddle of radiation. They were young, maybe only a few years older than her.

She knew what they were doing here. Sometimes people liked to get high off of radiation fumes. She'd heard that it was a bit like sniffing wonder glue. There were only two types of people who got high off of radiation: wanna-be drug addicts and those who were drug addicts, but no longer had the money to pay for drugs.

She peered out at them, just curious to see who they were. She recognized them both. She'd seen them at Moriarty's before, usually talking to Lucy West. She was pretty sure that the older, dark-haired boy was dating Lucy.

The other kid, the blond, was more or less about her age. If she was still concerned with such things, she might have had a crush on him. He was a good looking kid. He had baby-face. He looked very calm and innocent.

_I'll bet you wouldn't look so calm if you knew what was going on in here, _she thought to herself. _Any minute now, I could accidentally blow you all sky high._

She let the bulb in her hand go. She still wasn't sure about it, so she went on to examine the next one.

"Hey, Jimmy, you know that old raider up in Moriarty's?" One of the boys outside the nuke asked the other.

She peered out at them, hoping to get a good earful of gossip about Jericho. It would give her something to bring up during their next trip. She needed ways to get under his skin. Lord knows that he got under hers.

"Yeah," the blond boy replied and Rhydian could tell how high he was by the tone of his voice. "He's a dick. What about him?"

"He's been traveling with Rhydian the Skinner."

"Don't lie, Mark. No one would be stupid enough to travel with that psycho chick. Man, I heard she murdered a whole brothel not far from Megaton."

Rhydian wanted to jump out of the bomb and scare the living daylights out of both boys, but she decided against it. It wasn't worth having to deal with Cromwell and the other crazy folks who worshipped the bomb.

She wondered who was making up these rumors about her. There were so many people in Megaton that were capable of making up rumors. She highly doubted that this was the only rumor circling around about her.

"Yeah, man, I heard about that. Did you hear what happened next?"

Rhydian peered out again. She was like a campfire story! Jimmy, the blond kid, looked terrified and excited as he waited for Lucy Wests' boyfriend, Mark, to start telling him the story.

"Well, she killed all those women by strangulation. She didn't want them to have a lot of cuts or bullet holes. She skinned them, dude."

"Oh, no way," Jimmy replied with a wild fear in his eyes.

"Dude, I'm not kidding. She skinned them and she wore their skin around. I'm sure all ugly girls want hot girls' faces, but you can't just take them."

Rhydian's mouth was ajar now. She couldn't believe people thought she could do something so terribly disgusting. Now, she really felt like jumping out and scaring the pants off of them.

"Ha, dude, you want to know something sick?" Jimmy asked in a hushed tone.

Rhydian wasn't even sure she wanted to know anything else sick right now. She felt as if she could puke all inside the nuke right now.

"I think she's kind of hot," Jimmy answered himself before Mark could even ask.

"Dude, you need help," Mark told him with great concern in his voice.

"She's a demon," Rhydian growled from the inside of the nuke. "She destroys many towns. She leaves nothing behind her but a trail of despair and bloody remains. The sky will open up and a great spiral will stem from it. The sky will turn red with the blood of her victims. It will rain blood for seven days and seven nights and she will make the way clear for the devil to walk among you."

Rhydian literally had to hold her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing as the boys ran away terrified. She managed to keep from laughing, but it resulted in her snorting as she tried to catch her breath.

"Atom speaks!" Cromwell announced to his flock.

Rhydian gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth. She realized after a moment that it was just part of his jargon and wasn't literal. She breathed a sigh of relief and examined the last bulb. It was a false reactor for sure, as the coils were backwards.

Rhydian wrapped her hand around the bulb that she had dropped earlier. She wasn't sure about this particular bulb the first time she examined it, but she was sure about it now. This bulb was the nuclear combustion reactor. Well, she was ninety percent sure it was.

She took a deep breath and wrapped her hand around the bulb. She paused for a moment to offer a silent prayer for the citizens of Megaton.

"God, please don't let this be a false nuclear combustion reactor. If I was in the wasteland disarming a bomb with no one else in a few mile radius, I wouldn't even ask. I just don't want to kill all these people. I know they're jerks to me, but that doesn't mean I want them to die. I also wanted to make sure that if I do accidentally blow this place up, that you know it was an accident. Amen."

She squeezed her eyes shut, drew a deep breath, and pulled the bulb. A ticking transpired and she panicked until it slowly faded out. Sometimes explosives do that when they're disarmed, nukes in particular. She wasn't sure why and it always gave her a scare.

She climbed out of the bomb and as soon as the nighttime desert air hit her, she began to shiver. The cold air seemed to turn the sweat droplets on her face and chest into ice cycles. The raider badlands armor she wore didn't do much to keep her warm at night.

She slowly put both control boxes back on the nuke and left the scene of the crime. Her heart still raced as she ascended up the hill toward Megaton's gate. She'd hidden her supplies behind the un-owned house at the top of the hill.

"Well, I'll be damned. I saw you walking away from the bomb. To my finest recollection, I don't remember an explosion."

"The bomb is disarmed, Simms." She was irritated with him. She just wanted to get her things and leave.

"Let's talk about your reward."

She spun around quickly with an angry look on her face and shouted, "Oh, I don't need a reward! The joy I, Rhydian the Skinner, get from skinning whores and turning them into armor is satisfactory enough!"

"Ah, yes," he said in a hushed and embarrassed tone. "I seem to recall that particular rumor. You didn't seem like the type to be bothered by rumors."

"I'm not," she stated flatly as she grabbed her supply bag and began walking in the direction opposite of the gate. "It doesn't mean I like them either, _Sheriff._"

"You ain't the only one with rumors," Simms assured her as he followed her, always staying two steps behind her. "If it's any consolation, I don't believe those things about you."

"That will definitely help me sleep at night," she said as she waved him off. "Santa Clause must have come early this year."

"You honestly don't care?"

"No, I care. Believe me, I do. The sheriff is a nice addition to the ghoul, the whore, and the raider that believe me. That could be a comic book, you know."

"Excuse me?" Simms asked, not following her train of thought at all.

She walked into the ladies room with her pack and he stood out the door.

"We can call it _The Adventures of Rhydian the Skinner and her Trusty Sidekicks. _Then we'll introduce the sidekicks: _Grumpy_, the drunken raider, _Flappy Vagina, _the sensitive whore, _Squishy Peely, _the misunderstood ghoul, and _Rumor Man, _the Sheriff who's heard them all!" She shouted from the bathroom like an announcer.

Simms ruffled his brow. He didn't understand women at all. He was glad that Harden was a boy. He loved Harden's mother so when she was alive, but for the life of him, he couldn't understand that damn woman either.

"I don't know what in blazes has thrown a spoke in your wheel, but here's your reward," Simms told her, holding out a small bag and a sheet of paper.

Rhydian stepped out of the bathroom door, clothed in combat armor. She carefully took the sheet of paper and the bag from Simms. From the feel of it, the bag was full of caps. She read over the paper, shocked to see that it was the deed to the un-owned house at the top of the hill.

"I- wow, I don't know what to say," she replied, looking guilty. "I'm sorry about earlier. I just overheard some jackasses talking while I was fixing your bomb problem."

"You just let me know who's spreadin' the rumors and I'll give 'em a talking-to."

"It's fine." Rhydian dismissed his idea completely. "This isn't kindergarten. I'll get over it. Right now, I've got things to do outside of Megaton."

They bid each other adieu and went their separate ways. Simms went to gather Harden for bed time while Rhydian walked straight for Megaton's gates.

She stepped outside the gates alone for the first time in what seemed like years, but in reality, had only been a few days. Jericho made days seem like a century to her. He was such a despicable man. The mere sight of him lit a fire beneath her.

Rhydian felt free as the wind brushed her face. Calmness enveloped her when she listened and could hear nothing. There were no sounds of belching, breaking glass, or cursing. She liked the silence, relished it.

She knew the silence wouldn't last long, though. Soon a dog would howl in the distance. A raider would curse. A supermutant would scream. A deathclaw would screech. A yao guai would roar. The silence would be broken by a creature too stupid or too careless to soak up its tranquility.

John Henry Eden was the first to break the silence as an Enclave Eyebot whizzed by. She shot it, because for some reason, John Henry Eden gave her the heebie jeebies. Something about him just made her feel sick to her stomach. He made her feel alone and helpless.

She made her way to Silver's house without any distractions other than the eyebot. Once inside, she lay down in Silver's bed. She wasn't heading back to Megaton tonight. She didn't want to lose the silence that quickly.

She scrolled through her pipboy until her eyes rested on something that she'd completely forgotten about. Jonas had a holotape on his body that was supposed to have been a note from her father. She never played it.

"_Hold on, Jonas. I need to record this first."_

Her heart sank as the voice of her father filled the room. She'd been so mad at him, but hearing his voice again changed that. She missed him so much.

"_Rhydian, I don't really know how to tell you this. I hope you'll understand, but I know you might be angry. I thought about it for a long time and I decided it was best for you not to know. So many things could have gone wrong…"_

_So many things _did _go wrong, Dad, _Rhydian thought to herself as she hugged her knees. _So many things went wrong._

_"…and there's really no telling how the overseer will react when he finds out. It's best if he can blame everything on me. Obviously, you already know that I'm gone._

_"It was something I needed to do. Honey, I wish I could make you understand it. I really do. I wish you knew how important this was to me… and Catherine. You're an adult now. You're ready to be on your own._

_"Maybe someday things will change and we can see each other again. I can't tell you why I left or where I'm going. I don't want you to follow me. God knows life in the vault isn't perfect, but at least you'll be safe. Just knowing that will be enough to keep me going."_

_"Don't mean to rush you, Doc," came Jonas' voice, "but I'd feel better if we got this over with."_

_"Okay, go ahead. Goodbye. I love you."_

Rhydian let go and cried for the first time in a very long time. She felt every ball of anger, hatred, frustration, guilt, and sadness wash away with the tears. Tears ran down her cheeks and cleansed her of all her bad emotions.

Just like anyone else, she didn't like to cry. She hated to cry, but this time she was glad she did. This time, it made her make up her mind about something very important. She decided that she was going to find James. There was no doubt in her mind about it this time.

The next morning, she made her first stop in Megaton. She walked into her house and got the fright of her life when something was standing in front of her.

"I must apologize, Madam. I never meant to startle you. I am your new robotic butler, Wadsworth."

"Rhydian," she smiled. She awkwardly held her hand halfway up, unsure if the robot could shake hands or not.

"What can I do for you today Madam?" Wadsworth asked politely and then quietly muttered, "…hopefully nothing."

"Nothing," she answered as she started neatly placing her valuables on the shelf in her new home. "I'll be gone for a while, Wadsworth. You're free to do whatever you want."

She changed into her raider badlands armor and walked outside. The sun reflecting off the tin town warmed her skin. She lit a cigarette as she walked down the ramp behind her house. She did a one-handed cartwheel down the ramp, just to prove she could still do it.

"_Who can say why your heart sighs, as your love flies?_

_"Only time."_

She knew everyone was staring at her as she sang, but she honestly couldn't be bothered to give a damn. She was happy today. Nothing could bring down her mood today. She was sure of it.


	6. Chapter Six

"Well, hi there!" Moira chimed as Rhydian walked into Craterside Supply. "Are you ready to continue working on the Wasteland Survival Guide?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," Rhydian answered absentmindedly. "Just give me lots and lots of ammunition."

Moira did as she was told, handing Rhydian tons of ammunition for her shotguns and her various rifles. She also handed over an observation device and received a strange look from the young woman in front of her.

"You did say that you were going to finish the mirelurk task, didn't you?"

"I did?" Rhydian asked, popping a piece of irradiated bubblegum in her mouth. "Oh, shit, I did. Okay, not to worry. I'll do it."

"I think it's nice you're traveling with Jericho," Moira added as she placed the observation device in Rhydian's hands.

"You do?" Rhydian was shocked, as she never expected anyone to tell her that. Everyone seemed to tell her not to. According to what she'd heard last night, some people apparently feared for Jericho as well.

"Yeah, he deserves a second chance. No one wanted anything to do with him after he raped that young girl at the Brass Lantern."

Rhydian swallowed her bubble gum in surprise. "Uh, yeah, I'm a big fan of second chances. I'll see you later, Moira."

Jericho had raped someone. He had raped Jenny Stahl right in the middle of Megaton. What if he tried to rape Rhydian? If he was able to rape Jenny right in the middle of town, what would he to do her in the middle of the Capital Wasteland with no one around? What _could _he do to her?

She left Megaton alone after that. She didn't bother with rounding up Jericho. There was no way she was traveling with that evil son of a bitch now. She could take care of herself. She just didn't feel morally right about running around with a rapist.

She headed east, deciding that she would go ahead and finish this chapter in Moira's book. She had already told the woman that she'd help with the book and she wasn't going to go back on that now. She refused to break her word with anyone.

A few miles from Megaton, she ran across a couple of supermutants. She sat atop a hill with a perfect bird's eye viewof the creatures. She raised her scoped rifle and aimed for one of them when she noticed something strange.

One of the supermutants was wearing a wig and a dress. She nearly vomited when she realized what was going on. They were _getting it on. _She quickly looked away from the horrifying scene and desperately wished for a shower.

She couldn't let them go, no matter what satisfying activity they were taking part in at the moment. She couldn't let them go. If she did, they'd go and hurt someone else. They would probably come after her in a few minutes.

She loaded up a mininuke in her fatman and fired, killing both supermutants simultaneously. She thought about walking down the hill and looting their corpses. She decided against it when she realized that the pitching supermutant still didn't have his pants on.

She didn't want to walk down there and see a supermutant's penis. She could see blood and guts all day long, but a supermutant's penis was one thing that she absolutely could not handle. This was especially true if the supermutant's penis was still lodged inside another supermutant's rear-end.

She walked down the hill, careful not to let her gaze wonder over toward the supermutant remains on her left. She wished she could forget what she had seen, but she knew that this thought would not leave her mind any time soon, if ever at all.

A more troubling thought entered her mind. If supermutants liked sex, which it appears they did, did that mean that they raped those wasteland captives they found? She imagined that a supermutant would be very well endowed. That being thought, she imagined it would be loads more painful than human-on-human rape. She figured it would be much more emotionally damaging as well.

She carefully waded into the river and swam over toward the Anchorage Memorial. She knew there would be an underwater entrance somewhere and she figured that would be her best bet to get the device in unnoticed.

She hid her pack beneath a large rock, hoping that would be enough for the pack to go unnoticed, and swam underwater. She opened her eyes and ignored the stinging the radiation imposed on her naked eyeballs.

Before the stinging became unbearable, she found the sewer entrance and slipped inside. Once inside, the overwhelming fishy smell of mirelurk infiltrated her nose. She did her best not to gag as she quietly crawled through the tunnels, searching for a cluster of mirelurk eggs.

She finally found one and ripped open the sack. She slipped the observation device inside and made sure it was facing outward. When she turned around, she was face to face with a mirelurk king. She reached for her gun, only to find out that she didn't have one.

She gave him a roundhouse kick to the chest and ran. As she was diving beneath the water, she was hit in the back of the head with a sonic wave from the king. She slipped out the door and just as she neared the surface of the water, she lost consciousness.

Uncle Leo was atop the Anchorage Memorial when he saw a hand breach the surface of the water. The movement looked panicked, but then it sunk slowly beneath the water. He was pretty sure it was the red-headed girl he'd seen dive in several minutes ago.

He jumped into the soothing, irradiated water and dove beneath the surface. He found the girl unconscious at the bottom of the river. He wrapped both arms around her, hoping that she was alive. He kicked off the riverbed with both feet and broke through the surface.

He lay the girl down in the dirt and put his head on her chest. She wasn't breathing. He began to perform CPR on her for a little while but to no avail. He opened her mouth, held her nose, and gave her mouth-to-mouth. Her eyes popped open as he pressed his mouth against hers.

She spit up water and screamed at the top of her lungs. He hadn't expected any different from her. She patted her sides, probably looking for a gun, and her eyes widened in fear as she stared back at him. Then, she asked him something that took him completely off his feet.

"A-are you going to rape me?" She asked in a shaky voice as she scooted backward.

"Why would I do such a thing?"

Rhydian stared back at him, her fear melting into a sea of confusion. The supermutant in front of her took offense to that accusation. No, he looked downright _hurt _by her accusation. She didn't know a supermutant could even get his feelings hurt, much less by a human.

"B-because you're-you're a supermutant," she added. "And you were just molesting me."

"I most certainly was not," the offended supermutant told her with his hand against his chest in offense. "I was resuscitating you. You almost drowned."

"Oh." Her cheeks turned a deep shade of red that matched that of a tomato. She put her hand on the back of her neck and said, "Well, I'm really sorry. I was just so flustered when I thought you were kissing me."

"It's quite all right. Might I ask what a young girl like you is doing traveling alone?"

"Well," she began as she wrung out her hair, "first of all, I can handle myself. I was traveling with an ex-raider for a while. Then, someone told me he had raped a townie, so I ditched him."

"That doesn't sound very practical," the mutant replied with an air of wisdom in his voice. "I'm Uncle Leo, by the way."

"Rhydian," she said, reaching out to shake his hand. "Why isn't that practical?"

"Have you ever had a rumor spread about yourself?" Uncle Leo asked. "It does not do wonders for your feelings. On top of that, they aren't always true."

"This guy doesn't have feelings. He's an ex-raider."

"I have feelings," Uncle Leo interrupted, "and I'm a supermutant."

He said the word _supermutant _very quietly, as if he was ashamed to be one. She was sure he was ashamed, given how the other supermutants acted.

She felt ashamed now for assuming that the old raider didn't have feelings. After all, he was a human. She used that term loosely, but he was still a human. She also felt bad about the fact that she believed the rumor in the first place.

Lord knows all the rumors that were going around about her. None of them were true. So, who's to say that the Megaton settlers weren't just making up vile rumors about him like they had about her. She felt like a complete idiot for immediately believing what she had heard without asking Jericho himself. Not that a rapist would be likely to tell the truth or anything.

"Well, I feel like a dick now," she muttered.

"I fail to understand how someone can feel like such a specific part of an animal's anatomy," Uncle Leo told her as he scratched his head.

Rhydian hopped to her feet without answering him. She ran over to the rock that her pack was stored under. She threw her bag over her shoulder and walked back over toward him.

"You're right. Thank you, Uncle Leo."

With that being said, she left in Megaton's direction. She quietly scolded herself. How could she be so stupid? This situation exactly mirrored her situation with the rumors. She only had a handful of people who believed her and she always thought she was like those people. Instead, she'd been like the other assholes.

She felt a searing pain in her back before she went airborne and landed fifty yards away. She landed on the ground hard enough to make her nearly black out. She had a vague idea of what had lifted her into the air.

She had hoped it was a yao guai until her hopes were crushed by the sight of a large reptile leaping for her. She slipped her pack off of her shoulders and ran for dear life. The deathclaw gained on her and leapt for her once more.

She hit the dirt and rolled backwards, nearly being crushed by its massive feet. She ran for her pack and snatched her dart gun out of it. In a panic, she shot a dart at the deathclaw and missed. It swiped her with its massive claws, leaving a series of cuts across her face and chest.

She squeezed off another dart and managed to hit the deathclaw in the chest. It screamed and its legs were almost immediately crippled. She snatched up her shotgun and ran around in circles. Shell after shell shot out of her gun as she aimed for the deathclaw limping after her.

Its ominous silhouette was illuminated by the large, full moon behind it. The monster let out another loud scream. Its knees buckled and it fell to the ground, quiet and unmoving. She let out a sigh of relief as she approached the massive, lifeless body.

She stared into the lifeless eyes and thanked her lucky stars that she'd had her dart gun with her. Without it, she doubted that she'd have survived the attack. Deathclaws were too big, too vicious, and far too quick.

She started cutting off its hands and as she did, she couldn't imagine anything more terrifying and aggressive than the deathclaw. If there ever was anything scarier than a full grown deathclaw, she definitely didn't want to meet it.

When she finished cutting off its claws, she headed toward Megaton. She examined the claw in her hand and was a little happy that she'd run into the deathclaw. She'd always wanted to make a deathclaw gauntlet and deathclaw hands weren't something that she was easily able to find in stores.

She put the claw away and injected a stimpak into her face and neck. She foolishly hoped that it would keep her face from scarring. Deep down, she knew it was going to scar, though. She wasn't stupid enough to think that a swipe from a deathclaw only left shallow cuts.

She wondered if this was karma paying her back for believing that Jericho had actually raped the Stahl girl. Maybe he had, she still couldn't be sure, but she never should have believed it without a second thought. She should have learned a lesson from all the assholes that believed the rumors about her.

She was sure the scars on her face would help people believe the stories about her. She wondered what rumors would come of them. If anyone asked, she'd tell them it was a deathclaw. She wondered how they would spin that tale around and what new and creative tales they would tell others of how her scars came to be.

She reached up and touched the scars on her face. From what she could tell, they were extremely deep. She could feel her cheekbone. Not that she was surprised by that. She had actually thought they were going to be deeper.

She also wondered if the deathclaw encounter would have happened if she had been with Jericho. She decided that it wouldn't have, given that she would have found someplace to stay if she'd had someone else with her. She wasn't opposed to traveling in the dark herself, but she felt a little bad about making someone else travel in the dark.

She pulled up her pipboy map to see approximately how far she was from Megaton. She let out a sigh of relief when she realized that she was no more than an hour away. In fact, she was already running across the molerats that lived behind Megaton.

A vertibird flew overhead and she wondered for a moment what it would take for her to get her hands on one of them. It would make her travels easier by a considerably large amount. On the other hand, she was a sucker for sightseeing.

Also, she was a bit of a claustrophobe. She was terrified of small spaces and she doubted a small space way up in the air would do anything other than deepen her fear. She decided against getting a vertibird, even though she knew she had no chance of getting one anyway.

She reached Megaton around eleven. She slipped quietly in the gates, careful not to let them slam behind her. All she needed was Simms running out of his house in his underwear with a Chinese assault rifle in his hands. She nearly gagged at the thought.

She put her supply bag in her house and headed up to Moriarty's. The encounter with the deathclaw left her anything but tired. She doubted she'd sleep anytime soon. The fear from the attack still lingered, and the stinging scars on her face, chest, and back didn't add much to help her sleep either.

When she walked in the bar, Gob didn't even look up. He kept his head down and she figured that was all courtesy of the bastard bar owner. She'd hoped maybe Colin had just yelled at him, opposed to getting physical with the friendly, old bartender.

Jericho, as always, was sitting at the bar. He was piss-ass drunk so far as she could tell. That, too, was of no big shock. He didn't seem to notice that she'd sat down beside him. He merely focused on the bottle of whiskey in his hands.

"Gob, I need a beer please," Rhydian told him softly, as she slid the caps across the counter. She'd given him three times the amount owed for the beer. She always forked him extra caps when she could.

Gob slid her beer across the bar without looking up at her. He counted the caps that he needed from the stack she'd given him. When he realized how much extra she'd given him, he looked up at her to give them back.

When his eyes met her face, he had a slight panic attack. The scar-faced girl had scared him witless. He felt a little bad about that, considering he wasn't the most beautiful thing the Capital Wasteland had to offer.

"What happened this time?" He asked as he polished a glass cup. He still refused to look her directly in the eyes. Moriarty had demanded that he stop being so friendly with the girl after she'd smarted off to him.

"A fucking deathclaw happened," Rhydian snorted as she cracked the cap off the beer. "It's gonna scar, but at least I'm alive to wear the scars."

"That's what you fuckin' get for ditchin' me," Jericho snarled in his same tone.

"Aw. Did I hurt your feelings by not bringing you along? I had no idea you liked me that much," Rhydian gave a wicked smirk to the grumpy ex-raider.

"Fuck no, I hate you. I just wanted in on the fuckin' caps."

"You are always just so cheery. It warms my heart into a million little happy pieces." She flashed a grin. "You can come along tomorrow. I didn't make any caps today, anyway. I was doing a favor for Moira."

She drank a few more beers before heading to her house. She crawled into bed and flipped on Galaxy News Radio. Three Dog was chattering away about her battle with the deathclaw. Until she fell asleep she wondered how Three Dog even got all of this information and how it had traveled to him so quickly.

It made her feel uneasy to think she was being spied on.


	7. Chapter Seven

Freddie Gomez paced back and forth in the classroom. He knew it was going to come down to this. They wanted him to choose. He didn't want to choose, but he had to. Today, he was being forced by the Amata to decide whether or not he was with her and the rebels or the rest of the vault.

He chose the rebels. He'd always been with the rebels, really, but not choosing sides kept him from being attacked by either side. Now that he'd chosen, the security guards would be all over him like the bitch attitude was on Amata.

"Good," Amata stated as she pointed a finger at him. "Don't let me catch you trading secrets with your father. We all know whose side he's on."

Freddie wasn't normally quick to anger, but Amata's demand made him boil. Who was she to tell him what he could or could not discuss with his own father? His father would never disclose that information to the Overseer by any means.

"Whatever you say, Amata," he replied, quickly covering up the anger in his voice with the shaky, nervous tone he usually spoke with.

Amata walked away with a satisfied look on her face. She was excited to have a little bit of power in the vault. She had the rebels behind her and she had power over them. Soon enough, she would have power over the whole vault. She could feel it.

"Good call, man," Butch said excitedly as he placed a hand on Freddie's shoulder. "I always knew you'd make the right call. Amata might think she's in control of us, but she's not."

"Of course not," Freddie mused. It didn't matter if someone was in control of Butch or not, he'd never admit it. Freddie knew that, too. He took Butch's statement with a grain of salt. He honestly wouldn't be surprised to find that Amata was in full control of the rebels.

"I mean, we support her decision to escape the vault, but we don't support her. You know what I mean? She knows that, too."

Freddie nodded to Butch's question. Sure, he knew what Butch meant. Butch really should have asked if Freddie believed it, because he didn't. He found it rather amusing that Butch was supporting a girl that he tormented throughout their lives.

Butch, Wally, and Paul may have gangbanged Amata a few times, but that didn't stop any of them from tormenting her. Freddie didn't want anything to do with any of them after that, especially Amata. He felt unclean being around her.

Butch sat down at a desk in the classroom and began to play with his switchblade. It may have been time for the rebels to go over their plan for the week, but Butch never really listened to that. Most of the rebels were all bark and no bite.

They all talked and talked about how they were going to get out of the vault. None of them ever did anything to help the cause though. If he knew for sure these pantywastes were behind him, he'd start acting.

He'd kill the overseer and the whole security force if he had to. There was no doubt in his mind about that. He wasn't a sissy but he damn sure wasn't stupid either. He knew if he stabbed someone in the throat with his switchblade, no one would stand behind him.

The rebels would all run for cover like they had with Brotch. Butch was passed out drunk yesterday when Brotch was thrown in vault prison. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but he did know that no one stood behind Brotch.

As soon as the guards took him into custody, the rest of the rebels crept away like the snakes they were. Well, like the regular snakes they were. _Tunnel Snakes _weren't like that.

Though, tunnel snakes really only included Butch and Freddie right now. Paul had died not long after Doc and his kid left the vault. He'd been wounded severely by radroaches and the vault had no doctor to save him.

Wally had quit the gang all together. Butch was glad Wally had quit the gang… because fuck Wally. No one quits the Tunnel Snakes. Butch kicked people out of the Tunnel Snakes. In Butch's mind, really, he had kicked Wally Mack out of the Tunnel Snakes.

Freddie wasn't really listening to Amata talk either. He was worried with the situation. He kind of wished that James and Rhydian wouldn't have left in the first place. If they had never left, then he wouldn't be in this situation.

Also, if they hadn't left, he could still be close to Rhydian. He'd never tell anyone else this, but she was the only person he could be himself around. Doc's kid didn't judge him like everyone else in the vault. Doc's kid didn't call him _Freddie the Freak _or compare him to _Grognak the Barbarian. _

"Let's go, Gomez," Butch commanded, pulling him by the sleeve. "I want to try and free Brotch."

Freddie followed Butch into the vault's jail. Brotch was standing in the jail cell and didn't look very pleased to see either boy walking in the room.

"We're here to free you," Butch announced, hoping to hear gratitude and joy from Brotch. Hearing only a sigh in reply, Butch asked, "Hey, what gives?"

"Mr. DeLoria, as I can tell you from your grades, you are not capable of hacking the terminal or picking the lock."

Brotch still had a sense of authority in his voice, which made Freddie wonder if he was really aware of where he was. Freddie wondered if maybe Brotch's tone was arrogant naturally and not the result of being a teacher.

Butch ignored Brotch's insults. Who was Mr. Brotch to tell Butch what he was and was not capable of? Butch decided himself that he was fully capable of picking a stupid lock. He was leader of the Tunnel Snakes- the most feared and dangerous delinquents in all the land. A stupid lock was no match for him, he decided.

Brotch just stared without interest at the two boys who claimed they were going to free him. He had taught the two young men all their lives and he knew neither one was capable of bypassing the vaults security system, whether it be by lock or by terminal.

He knew Butch DeLoria very well. Butch may have fancied himself an intelligent and fearsome criminal, but he was neither. A criminal he was, but fearsome or intelligent, he was not. In theory, he considered Butch much like a young kitten. Yes, he could hiss and scratch someone, but he couldn't kill them.

He also knew Freddie Gomez. Freddie was a timid and vulnerable soul who tried to avoid violence at all costs. For the longest time, he had tried to avoid choosing factions in the vault. This kid was no more criminal than a sleeping baby. He highly doubted that the anxious young man could find it within himself to even attempt to hack a terminal or pick a lock.

Freddie stood by the doorway while Butch attempted to pick the lock keeping Brotch in his cell. If he stood by the doorway, he could hear if someone was coming. If the overseer or a vault officer did happen to come this way, Freddie was unsure of what he would actually do.

Staying in the room and getting caught didn't sit right with Freddie. However, taking off and hiding while letting Butch take all the blame didn't sit right with Freddie either. Not that Freddie thought Butch would have his back in any kind of situation. Freddie still didn't like the idea of stooping to Butch's level.

He silently cursed himself as his hands began to shake. He didn't understand himself, really, so he could understand why no one else could. His hands- they were always shaking. He was always nervous, anxious, and unsure of everything.

He could hardly even decide what he wanted for breakfast in the mornings. He never thought sugar bombs were a good choice as they made his stomach hurt. He thought maybe he wanted a sweetroll for breakfast, but then something about having a sweetroll for breakfast seemed wrong to him.

_Damn my VDS, _he thought to himself. He wished he didn't have it to begin with. Then, he realized he wouldn't be himself without VDS and he was glad he had it. That's when he realized, that once again, he was incapable of making up his mind about something. He wasn't sure whether or not he'd choose to have VDS if given the choice.

Butch grew impatient as he continued to wiggle his bobby pin around in the keyhole. He was frustrated until he realized his bobby pin in the keyhole resembled something dirty. That thought made him giggle.

_Fuck this lock, fuck this vault, _he chimed in his head over and over again. He jiggled the bobby pin around in the keyhole. _Unlock, you son of a bitch._

Butch broke part of his bobby pin off in the lock, successfully jamming it. He stood up and smiled at Brotch. He'd tried his best and no one could blame him for that.

"I broke the lock," Butch clarified as if no one else had heard the snapping of his bobby pin. "I'll try to hack the terminal now."

"No!" Brotch shouted. He knew good and well that if someone got locked out of a terminal someone else could still hack it. He also knew that if anyone could render a terminable completely useless, it was Butch DeLoria and he was not taking that chance. "Do not touch that terminal, DeLoria. I mean it."

"What are you gonna do about it?" Butch sneered from behind the glass.

"I'll give you detention for life."

"You can't do that," Butch bit back, proud of himself for knowing that much. "You can't give me detention when I'm already graduated."

"Oh, yes, I can make that possible, DeLoria. Just try me."

Butch stared at Mr. Brotch for a while. Earlier he was sure that Brotch couldn't do that, but now, he wasn't so sure. He decided against trying to find out. If there was one thing Butch hated more than anything else, it was school.

"Let's go, Gomez. I've decided not to free him after all. I decided that maybe I don't like him all too much."

Butch was sure that he'd made it look like he decided against freeing Brotch and that Freddie had no idea that he was just incapable of picking that stupid lock. He'd seen the Doc's stupid brat pick the lock into the Overseer's office plenty of times. What did she have that he didn't have?

Freddie felt a sense of relief that they were unable to free the teacher from the jail cell. It wasn't like Freddie didn't like the friendly man, because he did. He just didn't want the Overseer or his security force coming after him for freeing Brotch.

Then, Freddie felt guilty. Maybe he deserved to be locked up, too, for thinking the way he did. He wasn't sure that a _better him than me _attitude was the best thing to have. In fact, that was the only thing that Freddie was sure of. He didn't want to be an asshole.

"I'm sorry that we couldn't free you," Freddie told Brotch as he left the room, following Butch.

"Well, this blows," Butch told him as they headed for Butch's room. "We ain't ever gonna get out of this stupid vault! This place gives me the creeps."

"Yeah, we are," Freddie assured him. "You should never believe that you can't do something. It's not good for your self-esteem."

Butch looked at him as if he were from a different vault entirely. "Hey, I don't need one of your VDS speeches, Gomez. I don't need no therapy, so you keep that to yourself, alright?"

Freddie nodded as Butch twisted the cap off a bottle of whiskey. The overwhelming stench of charcoal and permanent marker wafted across the room. Butch took a sip, seemingly unaffected by the kick Freddie knew it delivered.

"How can you drink that stuff straight from the bottle?" Freddie asked with a look of disgust. He'd only ever had whiskey with Nuka Cola and he could even taste the kick in that.

"Try some," Butch offered, holding the bottle out to Freddie. When Freddie shook his head, Butch demanded, "I said, _try it, _Gomez."

Freddie took the bottle. His first mistake was smelling the whiskey up close. The smell of it gave his nostrils a kick. He lifted the bottle up to his lips and sipped. The whiskey burned his throat, but more than anything, it burned his chest.

He quickly handed the bottle back to Butch while holding his other hand over his mouth. Nope, whiskey was definitely not for him. He tried his best to ignore the burning sensation that overtook his chest, but he couldn't do it.

Without giving a second thought as to whether or not Butch was going to bag him for it, he ran to the bathroom and hurled. The shot came up along with everything he had eaten that day. Again, whiskey was not for him.

He didn't bother going back to Butch's room. He knew that Butch was going to make fun of him for puking up the whiskey. So instead of going in there and taking the trash talk, he headed back to his room where his father was waiting.

"I heard you officially joined the rebels," he told Freddie as he sat down at the small table.

"Are you mad?" Freddie asked as he stood in the doorway. He wasn't sure yet if Herman was mad, so he just hovered in the doorway until he was sure.

"No, son, I'm not mad," Herman replied with the same calming and caring tone he always used. "In fact, sometimes I wish I could join the rebels myself."

"Are you serious?" Freddie asked, sitting down at the table across from his father. He clasped his hands on the table before him in an attempt to keep them from shaking.

"Do you know one of the last things James' daughter said to me before she left?" Herman asked, staring at his son with sad eyes.

He could tell that Freddie was nervous and anxious. Herman knew that his son was nervous pretty much all the time, but it really bothered him that Freddie was even nervous around him. He was Freddie's father. Freddie had no reason to be nervous around him.

"I don't think you ever told me, Dad."

"When I told her that I'd pretend I'd never seen her run by, she told me, _And I'll pretend that you don't work for a homicidal maniac._"

"Why are you telling me this?" Freddie asked, unsure if there were dots he was supposed to be connecting or not.

"I'm telling you this because that little girl was right. Do not ever tell anyone I told you this, son, but she was right. The reason that I don't quit isn't because I enjoy working for the overseer."

"Then why don't you quit?"

"I keep my job because I'm still a security officer. I'm still working for the safety of this vault even if the vault's overseer is a maniac. I'm still working to defend the safety of the vault, the vault kids, and above all, your safety."

Freddie was unsure of what to say. He felt more nervous now than he had before. Feelings and emotions made him extremely nervous. He was never really how to show his emotions, so he normally didn't. He nodded his head.

He nodded his head instead of stating his appreciation and admiration for his father, the only person that _really _cared about him. His mom didn't really care, but his father always had. His mother ignored him when he started speaking to the rebels, but his father still accepted him.

That's the way it always was. Freddie recognized how lucky he was to have his father. He didn't tell his father and he didn't tell anyone else, but he knew good and well. He hoped his father knew that without Freddie having to state it.

Herman didn't know and he didn't care, really. He didn't do the things he did to be appreciated and admired by his son. He did it to keep his son safe and for nothing more. He would continue to work for his son's safety whether his son appreciated it or not.

Butch was in his room, still. By this point, he was completely plastered. There was something missing inside Butch DeLoria. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, something deep inside Butch DeLoria was hopelessly broken beyond repair.

If he wanted to think about it, which he didn't, he could attribute that broken feeling to his mother. Part of the problem was rooted in the fact that he didn't have a father, either, but he could also blame that on his alcoholic mother.

Butch wanted to think that he was just a delinquent merely because he was just a badass. Deep down inside, though, no matter how hard he tried, Butch couldn't lie to himself. He was troubled because of his mother.

The basics of Butch's troubles were because of Ellen and only her. His broken and misguided feelings manifested in him becoming a bully. Again, Butch just wanted to think that he was a bully because he was tough, but that wasn't the reason.

"Get out of here, you worthless piece of garbage," Ellen slurred as she entered the room. "I've got business that I don't need you knowing about."

She entered the room with Paul Hannon Senior. Butch knew exactly what business she was speaking of. As much as Butch wanted to mouth off to his mother and tell her that he'd come and go as he pleased, he didn't want to see or hear her fucking Chief Hannon.

Paul Hannon Senior had lost his son, Paul Jr., and his wife, Vikki, the night that James and Rhydian had left Vault 101. He was upset and easily convinced, which made him the perfect victim for Ellen DeLoria.

Butch had once read about a creature called a siren in a book. It was supposed to be some creature that preyed upon men. It used sexual charm and desire to hypnotize men. Then, it would kill them or it would lead them into a dangerous situation where they would later be killed.

Butch was sure that his mother was a siren.

"I see you've been drinking my liquor again, you thieving brat. Maybe if you amounted to more than a fucking hairdresser, then you could get your own liquor."

"I'm a fucking barber," Butch reminded her as he threw the empty liquor bottle on the bed. He grabbed another full bottle from the cabinet and before leaving the room, he muttered to Chief Hannon, "You poor bastard."

He walked down the hallways and headed for Freddie's room. As he entered, he wished that Paul hadn't died the night the vault opened. If Paul was still around, he would have someone other than Freddie the Freak to shoot the shit with.

"I thought I told you about coming into my room and hanging out with my son," Officer Gomez stated as Butch walked in the door.

"Ain't you supposed to be leavin' for work anyway?" Butch asked in a smartass tone as he made himself comfortable on the Gomez' couch between Freddie and Pepper.

Herman eyed Butch one last time before leaving the room to work his shift. He didn't like Butch DeLoria. Butch was good for nothing but getting his son in trouble. He had turned Freddie into a bully for a while, and because of that, Freddie's VDS worsened.

Herman didn't want anything bad to happen to Butch. After all, Butch was only the way he was because of Ellen. That didn't stop him from wondering if Freddie would even have VDS if it wasn't for Butch. He always quickly dismissed that theory and felt guilty about it.

"Is your mother busy?" Pepper Gomez asked Butch, anxious to get out of the room and away from her son and Butch.

"Nope," Butch answered with a wicked grin. "She's sitting at home alone."

Pepper Gomez hurriedly left the room.

"Your mother isn't really alone, is she?" Freddie asked in a knowing fashion.

"Nope."


	8. Chapter Eight

Rhydian left Megaton and headed north with Jericho trailing behind her. She'd wanted to head north for a while. She needed to find another settlement to trade with. Megaton didn't receive new supplies fast enough for her, and Rivet City was much too far to travel when she was on the East side of the river.

Jericho was short on caps and didn't have enough whiskey to fund the trip. He'd spent every last one of his damn caps at the bar in Megaton. Per usual, he was in a pissy mood, and being sober made it that much worse. Thankfully for him, the little vault twerp had kept her annoying mouth shut so far. He only hoped it would continue for the remainder of the trip.

Rhydian slipped as they walked down a slope. Jericho saw the fall coming from a mile away, but did nothing to catch her. He merely felt amused as he watched the brat tumble head over feet all the way down the hill.

She landed with a thud and a crack. She quietly snapped her broken finger back into place and stood up. She shielded her eyes from the sun as she watched Jericho carefully navigate his way down the hill. She may have looked like an idiot, but at least her method wasn't time consuming.

She cracked a Nuka Cola open and took a sip. She giggled as the radiation tickled her tongue. She knew radiation was bad for her, but the radiation felt funny as it stung her tongue. She quite liked the feeling.

She checked her Geiger counter to make sure that she wasn't too seriously irradiated. Luckily, she wasn't. She didn't figure she was, as she felt completely fine. The longer she stayed in the Capital Wasteland, though, the harder it got for her to tell whether or not she had radiation sickness.

When she first came out of the vault, she immediately knew the first time she had radiation sickness. The longer she lived in the Capital Wasteland, the more she got used to feeling irradiated constantly. It was no longer abnormal to her and that was dangerous.

"Come on, you old bastard, we don't have all year," she told Jericho as he slowly made his way down the hill.

"Would you shut the fuck up? I don't feel like summersaulting down the hill like a fucking idiot."

"You are such an asshole," she mumbled under her breath as he finally stepped foot on level ground.

Rhydian wanted to ask Jericho about the Jenny Stahl rumor, but she didn't know how to ask. There was no way of telling how he'd react. He could say it didn't happen. He could say it did happen and it was a mistake or he was drunk. Or he could say, "_I did rape her. And now it's your turn."_

She shuddered at the thought. No one was raping her. She was sure of that. She carried a switchblade in her underwear just in case. She was fully prepared for a case of rape.

Jericho interrupted the silence. "Spit it out, bitch."

"What do you mean?" Rhydian asked, looking up at the old man.

"You want to ask me something. I'm not stupid. Spit it out."

"I heard about Jenny Stahl," Rhydian quickly spat out.

"It's not true," he answered almost immediately. "That bitch was completely willing. She just didn't want to be embarrassed when her brother walked in on her with the town drunk."

"Oh, okay. Good!" Rhydian gave him a wide grin. "Don't feel bad. A guy did that to me once."

"Someone tried to rape you?" Jericho didn't think Rhydian seemed like the type. He figured she'd be the type to fight back until the guy stopped or just killed her.

"No, right after I lost my virginity, someone walked in on me and the guy. He tried to tell them I raped him."

She was surprised when Jericho laughed. It wasn't something she'd expected from him. She felt good that she'd actually made him laugh. It made her feel kind of proud, actually. She grinned to herself as they continued walking.

Jericho laughed all right. He wondered who the poor sap was that would sleep with the irritating child. He laughed because he would do the same thing. God forbid he ever got the urge to touch the kid, he'd definitely say she raped him.

"You're not so bad when you're sober," she told him.

She noted that as soon as she finished her sentence, he stopped smiling. She thought it was a compliment and she wondered why he'd take offense to that. Maybe he wanted to remain unliked by everyone.

They came across a barricaded neighborhood further north. She broke into an excited run when she noticed someone across the bridge inside the barricaded town. The man quickly drew his gun on her. She froze in her tracks.

"Put your fucking gun down," Jericho demanded, coming up behind Rhydian with his Chinese assault rifle drawn. "Don't make me pump you full of fucking bullets."

Dusty slowly lowered his gun. He knew this day was coming. Someone was going to take over Big Town. He always thought it would be supermutants, but it was going to be raiders. He was somewhat satisfied. He'd rather that raiders took over the town.

"Who are you?" Dusty asked. He was scared to death and he couldn't keep the fear out of his voice.

"I'm Queen of the fucking Wasteland. Who do you think I am, asshole? I'm just a traveler. Shit, I wasn't going to hurt you," Rhydian told him as she lowered Jericho's gun with her hand.

"What do you want with Big Town?"

"I just wanted to look around, honestly," Rhydian told Dusty, a calm tone taking over her voice. "I'm really not going to hurt you. I'm Rhydian and he's Jericho."

"I'm Dusty," the man replied. "Supermutants attacked recently and carried off some of our friends. Please don't cause any trouble while you're here. We can't handle much else."

Rhydian looked back at Jericho with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. Jericho stared back at her with fire in his eyes. They were not helping these people, not if Jericho had a say in the matter. He knew this was going to happen if he traveled with the vault kid.

"Where did they take them?" Rhydian asked, standing in front of Dusty.

"The police station up north."

Rhydian left Big Town with Jericho dragging his feet behind her. He most certainly did not want to be running around saving every damn captive the wasteland had to offer. It was bullshit. The idiots who got caught didn't deserve saving in Jericho's opinion.

"Thanks for having my back with Dusty," she told him as they started toward the police station. "I know he wasn't really dangerous or anything, but you had my back and I appreciate that."

"You fuckin' pay me, I do my job. That's how it works," Jericho explained to her. "It wasn't personal, so don't start thinking it was."

"I know that," she stated in irritation. "I never said it was personal. I was thanking you for doing your job. Not everyone works hard to earn their pay, you know. Why do you have to snap at me all the time?"

He had felt stupid by that point. He always felt like the stupid kid was trying to snuggle up to him or something, but maybe she wasn't. Maybe she wasn't trying to make him like her. Maybe she was just a friendly person who couldn't help but talk too much.

"Don't mention it," Jericho murmured.

They made it to the police station just after dark. They made eye contact for a moment.

"Do not do it," she demanded, stomping her little foot.

Jericho flashed a wicked grin before charging through the gates of the police station shouting at the top of his lungs about how he was going to kill every supermutant around.

"I'm gonna blow you all to Hell!"

"God, I can't stand that man," Rhydian said to herself with another stomp of her foot.

She charged after him with her shotgun. She hated supermutants even more than she hated bloody deathclaws. The last time she'd run across a supermutants, not counting Uncle Leo, they were having sex. The time before that, they'd nearly killed her. She hated the nasty beasts.

"Stupid lady!" A supermutant shouted, swinging a sledgehammer at her.

_What the hell is with supermutants and sledgehammers?_

"Move it, kid!" Jericho shouted as he emptied a clip into the supermutant's head.

She leapt behind a tent and narrowly missed being hit by some of Jericho's bullets. If it was even possible, Jericho was an even worse aim when he was sober than when he was drunk.

She peaked from around the corner to see how Jericho was doing when she noticed a very large shadow behind him. She didn't even bother to tell him to duck before she picked up her Lincoln repeater and shot the supermutant looming behind the ex-raider.

Jericho spun around quickly to see what she'd shot at. He looked down to see a supermutant with a bullet between its eyes. He looked at the trajectory of the bullet and mentally stood the supermutant with his mind. He imagined there could have only been a few inches between his head and the bullet.

"That sure was a bully shot if I ever did see one!" She told him, walking up to him with a huge grin plastered on her face.

"Are you fuckin' crazy?" Jericho asked as she approached him. "You could have shot me!"'

"Oh, come on," Rhydian told him with a smirk on her face. "I would not have shot you. I've got a fantastic aim. I could shoot an apple off the top of your bald, shiny head!"

Jericho just shook his head. The kid was trying to kill him. She almost shot him right in the head. He almost wondered if she'd actually meant to hit him. That could very possibly be it. Either she meant to hit the mutant and she's an amazing shot or she'd meant to hit him and was a terrible shot.

"Come on, old man, no time to slow down now!" She yelled with a grin as she ran through each and every tent, looking for mutants to obliterate.

_Damn kid's getting the hang of it, _Jericho thought as he trailed after the girl who was fighting a centaur with a stick.

"Where the hell's your gun?" He called, leaning against a tent.

"He took it with his tongue! I think he ate it," she cried in confusion as she kicked the centaur, only to have it grab her by the leg with its tongues. "Are you going to help or what?"

"No, I'm enjoying the fuckin' show."

Rhydian managed to get her foot away from the centaur before he digested it. He crawled toward her and she plunged the combat knife in the middle of its face. With precision and loads of good luck, the knife hit the right place and killed the slobbery beast.

"What are you doin'?" Jericho asked as he watched the vault twerp pull the knife out of the creature's face and plunge it into its stomach.

"How else am I going to get my gun?"

The question was rhetorical. She had to get her gun. It was her favorite gun and she would not leave it in the belly of some beast.

She struggled as she pulled the knife toward her. The centaur's flesh made a sound like a bag of potato crisps as it split apart. She reached her hands in and pulled the centaur completely apart. She reached around inside and grabbed the gut bag.

She pulled it apart to reveal her sawed-off shotgun. It was covered in thick green goo. She made a disgusted face at Jericho as she pulled her gun cleaning kit out of her supply bag. She knew she had to clean it off now. If she waited too late, Lord knows what would happen to the gun.

Jericho couldn't help but laugh. Seeing the vault brat cut open a centaur's stomach and have to clean stomach bile of her gun was too much for him. The look on her face as she did it was what really cracked him up.

Rhydian managed to clean her gun. She loaded it and tested a shot at one of the tents. The wall was sprayed with an even dosage of buckshot and stomach bile. An unpleasant smell accompanied the shot.

Rhydian cracked open the gun as if to reload it. Instead, she shoved her nose into the loading chamber and took a big whiff. The smell was unbearable. It was as if some of the centaur's moldy and undigested food was caked inside the gun. She shuddered to think about what centaurs ate and therefore what could be on the inside of her beloved sawed-off.

She walked over to Jericho and shoved the gun in his face. "Hey, do you smell that?"

"Yep," Jericho replied without so much as flinching at the stench, "smells a bit like you, kid."

She mustered up a sarcastic smirk at the ornery raider. He really wasn't one to talk about smells. He didn't smell too pleasant himself. She didn't imagine that he bathed more than once a month.

"Well, you smell like whiskey and ass," she bit back at him as she contemplated on what to do with her shotgun. She loved the gun, but she wasn't sure she could get the smell out of it. She wasn't too keen on smelling centaur insides every time she fired the gun.

"Like that's a fuckin' bad thing," Jericho told her as they made their way toward the police station's entrance. "That happens to be my two favorite things."

Rhydian wished that Jericho wouldn't drink. Although he'd just insulted her aroma, she still thought he was much more pleasant to be around when he was sober. That came as quite a shock to her, as she'd have imagined the whiskey withdrawals would make him unbearable.

She reached for the door only to find out that it was locked. She was surprised by that as she never thought a supermutant would be smart enough to lock a door. She thought back to the two supermutants that she'd run into earlier that week. They'd recited a line from Little Red Riding Hood. The thought that supermutants were smarter than she'd realized was almost as interesting to her as it was terrifying.

"So, what was it like being a raider?" Rhydian asked as she began to work on picking the police station's lock.

"It was more fuckin' fun than you could think," Jericho replied while lighting a cigarette.

He wasn't being sarcastic and he damn sure wasn't lying. Being a raider had been the most fun thing in the world. His only regret was quitting when his gang was slaughtered. Back then, he'd thought it was time to settle down, but the reality of settling down was not as appealing as the idea of it had been.

"You never felt bad about slaughtering people?" She asked as she tested the lock.

"No, and I still don't. I never saw them as people." He flicked the tip of his cigarette and told her, "I saw them as prey."

That was the truth, as terrible as it may have been. When he saw defenseless wastelanders, it never registered to him that they were human beings. He'd seen them as wayward brahmin who'd strayed from the herd.

They were easy to kill, easy to loot, and somewhere along the way, it became fun to hunt them. After a while, he didn't kill them to make a living, but rather because it had become a game to him. It was survival of the fittest and he had been on a winning streak.

"How did you even become a raider?" She asked, lighting her own cigarette as she fumbled with the pesky lock. "You killed wastelanders for fun, right? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but once upon a time, weren't you just a wastelander yourself? I mean, was it hard to turn on your people like that?"

"I was never a fuckin' piss ant wastelander," Jericho corrected her angrily. "I was born into raiding. My parents had been raiders and I was born into that life. I was never a fuckin' sorry ass wastelander. If I ever had been, I would have shot myself right in the temple. People like that make the whole world weak."

In that moment, Rhydian felt sympathy for Jericho. It would have sounded strange to most that she felt compassion for such an evil soul, but that's exactly how she felt. She felt saddened by his way of thinking and that, most of all, he'd never really had the chance to think any other way.

Wastelanders didn't make the world weak. Raiders made the world weak. Evil made the world weak. Evil was strong enough to completely destroy the world ten times over, but the good in the world was what kept it spinning.

To Rhydian, strength didn't lie in how quickly someone could destroy something, but rather in how good could battle evil and keep the world from being destroyed. In her mind, strength lay within the people who gave purified water to the beggars outside large settlements.

Strength lay in those with the compassion to feel sympathy for others. Good was the reason that the world wasn't a fiery hell. Those who were able to resist the temptations of evil and commit themselves to a life of good were the strong ones.

It had taken weakness to destroy the world, but it would take strength to fix it.

It was easy to be a raider. It was easy to shoot an innocent wastelander or scavenger and take their valuables. It was easy to ambush a caravan and take the guns and the bullets that others had worked so hard to find.

It was hard to be a scavenger. It was hard to trudge through half-destroyed buildings battling supermutants and feral ghouls just to be shot later by a group of weak degenerates who were too weak and too scared to make a living on their own.

Wasn't that what good was all about? Good was all about resisting the evil in the world even though it made for a harder life. Good was about being disappointed when you didn't have enough caps to buy the biggest and baddest gun on the block.

Good was about walking away from that caravan that refused to lower the price on their weapons. Good was about turning around and working your ass off to make enough caps, the _honest _way to afford that indestructible semi-automatic rifle.

Good was about taking that heartbreak and rejection and spinning it around to better yourself instead of sell your soul.

If good was the only thing in the world, no one would have needed that gun. If good was the only thing left in the world, those beggars wouldn't have been outside Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, and Rivet City. If good was the only thing left in the world, those beggars would have been _inside _those settlements. They'd have been given a chance to live as something other than outcasts.

If good was the only thing left in the world, it wouldn't be a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Most of those raiders weren't even truly evil, just susceptible to taking the easy way out. Truly evil, were those who preferred the wasteland. Truly evil, were those who would pick shooting a man and stealing his things in a world where it wasn't necessary to do such a thing.

All the thinking about good and evil got her to wondering about Jericho. Was he someone who easily fell prey to a life of evil or was he just born with a sole of pure evil? Was he just a lost and misguided soul or was he truly evil?

Rhydian didn't know and she doubted that she'd ever find out.

"So, when you're with me and we're shooting raiders, am I turning you against your own people?"

"Kid, I don't have people," Jericho told her, which he honestly felt was true. "I'd kill anyone or anything for a quick cap."

"That's not what I meant," she said as she tested the lock once more. "Where do your loyalties truly lie? Do they lie within the raiders or within the wastelanders? Who would you rather work with?"

"I don't have loyalties. Whoever has the most caps is who I'm gonna pick."

She was sure he was lying, but she didn't tell him that. The fact that he didn't shoot her right then, steal her caps, and blame it on the supermutants showed that Jericho did have loyalty.

His loyalty didn't lie within her because she was a nice person. She knew that. His loyalties were manifested in her purely because she was paying him.

If he could remain loyal to an employer, was it that far of a stretch to believe that he could develop loyalty to a person's soul rather than the caps they harvested? This question stumped her. That's one thing that Rhydian just couldn't answer.

"Okay, we're in," she whispered as she turned the lock to the full extent. "Now, I've got a plan that will make this mutant extermination a walk in the park."


	9. Chapter Nine

Rhydian curled up on the ground in a ball. The supermutants hovering over laughed as the centaurs slapped the girl around with their tongues. It made them laugh even harder when the girl cried and begged for them to make centaurs stop.

"Please, my leg is broken," she begged.

Jericho hid in the shadows behind the supermutant. He only really had one chance to do his task right, so he was careful about it. He pulled the pin off the grenade and let it cook in his hand. He faked a sneeze and threw the grenade.

Rhydian stood up and dove through the doorway as the grenade exploded. Nothing but the charred remains and bloody innards of the creatures was left behind her.

"Way to cook it, Jerry!" She shouted with a grin. "You almost blew yourself up with that one!"

"For the last fucking time, you infuriating brat, do _not _call me that," Jericho grumbled as he tossed her pack to her.

The pack was so heavy and hit her with such an impact that it knocked her over backwards. She just grinned and stood up. They'd taken out all the supermutants and centaurs on that floor with just one grenade. She was too proud to be bothered by the grumpy, old man.

"Whatever you say goes, grumpy. That was a badass multikill and you know it."

"If I'm Grumpy, then you're Dopey."

Rhydian laughed much too hard at his cheesy joke. She couldn't help it. The thought of Jericho reading Snow White literally tickled her pink. She laughed until her cheeks turned pink and it irked Jericho. He felt as if she were laughing at him, mocking him even.

He followed her as she headed into another room. A woman in a jumpsuit was standing behind a cell door.

"Hey, I'm Rhydian and this is Jericho. You must be Red," Rhydian politely introduced herself as she freed the frightened woman.

"They took Shorty downstairs! Oh, no one ever comes back from downstairs," the woman sobbed.

"Today, they do," Rhydian countered her with a grin. "Wait here. I'll go and get your friend."

Jericho sulked behind her as they descended the stairs into the basement. As soon as they walked down the stairs, they came face to face with three supermutant overlords.

"New plan!" Rhydian shouted as she tore down the hallway. "Run and gun!"

Jericho was relieved. He thought running and gunning was the best course of action in this situation. Hell, he thought it was the best course of action in any situation.

He fired uncontrollably at the overlords as he ran around them in circles. Rhydian adopted the same technique as she blasted the supermutants full of buckshot.

An overlord grabbed Rhydian by the arm. Jericho didn't think twice before grabbing a machete from the table beside him and hacking off the offending arm. He couldn't let her get killed. She was the only person who was brave enough to hire him.

When the overlord opened its mouth to scream in pain, Rhydian pulled the pin off a grenade and shoved it in its mouth. Jericho chained his attack with hers and shoved the machete in the overlord's lower jaw. The blade entered out of the top of the overlord's head, affectively locking its jaw closed.

The two of them ran for cover as the grenade blew the overlord's head apart. The same wicked and unsettling grin spread across both their faces.

"I'm lighting this puppy up," Rhydian told Jericho as she loaded a mininuke into her fat man. She fired into the next room, successfully killing the remaining overlords. The recoil of the fat man knocked Rhydian on her ass. Her head hit the wall behind her and she grinned.

"I got to admit, kid," Jericho told her as he inspected the damage in the next room, "you sure know how to kill shit."

"Aw, did you just compliment me?" She asked with a knowing grin.

He should have known she'd make fun of him, so he quickly told her that he could have done much, much better.

"Well, I call bullshit," Rhydian announced as she walked into another room and started freeing the captive tied up there.

Shorty ran before she could even speak to him. There's no way he was talking to her. She'd just blasted a mininuke much too close for comfort. She was crazy and the old man with her was crazy too. Shorty was not staying another minute to speak to either of them.

"So," Rhydian began as she scavenged the room for valuables, "do you want to head up to the top floor and clear it out anyway? There's really no need for it other than fun."

"What the fuck do you think?"

They cleared out the top floor with ease. When they were about to walk out the door, they came across something that Rhydian didn't want to see.

There, on the floor, were Red and Shorty. They must not have known about the door on the ground floor. Instead, they'd run all the way up to the top floor, made it to the door, and died there. She couldn't imagine what it must've felt like to be so close to safety and to die there.

"That's what ya get for helping the weak, kid," Jericho informed her as they walked out the door. "You just get slapped in the face by the fuckin' idiots. Do you have a cigarette I could bum?"

"Nope." Rhydian shrugged. At least she'd tried. That was the most that anyone could have asked from her and she had done it. It wasn't her fault that Red and Shorty had run. She was going to guide them back to Big Town.

They died by their own hands, not by hers.

The two of them walked until they found Hallowed Moors Cemetery. They'd heard a captive screaming for help, so Rhydian insisted they help. They took out both supermutants without either of them being injured.

"People who get caught like this just can't survive in the wasteland," Jericho murmured as he peeked through various gore bags.

"You're right," Rhydian agreed.

Jericho jumped when Rhydian shot the captive wastelander in the back of the head.

"You're right" Rhydian repeated in a voice barely above a whisper as she stormed out the chapel door.

"The kid's done gone cold," Jericho mused with himself as he searched every nook and cranny for a pack of cigarettes.

He shifted his gaze toward the dead wastelander on the floor. That's what happened to people who couldn't control their emotions. If Rhydian didn't watch her ass, that would be her. He figured the damned kid would end up just like that.

Her emotions were all over the place. If she didn't put a lid on them, she'd end up getting shot in the head by another kid who was pretending to have gonads.

He kicked a box across the room in a fit of frustration. There were no cigarettes there either.

A sweet aroma flirted with his nose. The warm scent slowly slid up his nostril and it made Jericho smile as someone in love might smile. Jericho smelled his one true calling- he smelled a cigarette being lit up.

Rhydian puffed on her cancer stick while sitting on a tombstone. Her head was so foggy. This place- the Capital Wasteland was full of disgusting things. It was survival of the fittest and anything not strong enough to survive was slowly ripped apart.

She inhaled a long drag from her cigarette. As the smoke floated out of her nose in a thick cloud as she exhaled. She felt twigs snap behind her.

"So, you smelled it, huh?" She asked without turning around.

"Are you holding out on me? You said you didn't have any cigarettes," Jericho stated in monotone. He couldn't believe the bitch had lied to him. He kept his voice in monotone to avoid cursing at the kid.

"No," Rhydian quickly interrupted, "you asked if I had any smokes that you could bum. I didn't. I have smokes; just none that I wanted to give you."

"You're really not going to fucking give me one?" His question came out in an annoyed growl.

"Jericho, we split our profits half and half. You had plenty enough caps to buy cigarettes before we left Megaton."

"I thought they'd be easier to fuckin' find out here!"

"Well, tough shit, old man."

She handed him a cigarette anyway. When their fingertips brushed, she quietly wondered if she felt as cold on the outside as she felt on the inside.

"I was going to let her go," she said quietly, but Jericho was too busy looking lovingly at his cigarette to decipher her words.

"Huh?" He asked, finally realizing that she had said something. "What'd you say, kid?"

"I was going to let her go," she mumbled, regret inhabiting her voice.

"Why didn't you?" Jericho didn't really care. In fact, he'd wanted to shoot the sniveling wastelander himself. He was just curious as to why the goody two-shoes twerp had done it.

"I'd saved another captive once," she told him, not taking her eyes off the burning end of her cigarette. "I took on two supermutants and got my head busted open to save the sobbing wastelander. This was back when I used to carry stupid things with me."

"Like booze?"

She rolled her eyes at Jericho's question. He never thought about anything other than booze and smokes.

"No, Grandpa. Before I got my house in Megaton, I used to carry sacred things with me from the vault. Anyway, I rescued this captive and gave him a gun. He ran off and as I was putting my things away I found a bullet hole through Jonas' lab coat."

"Who is Jonas?" Jericho asked. As with all things he didn't really care. He just wanted to keep the girl occupied.

He slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out her pack of cigarettes. She was going to share them even if she wasn't willing. He stole one and returned the rest to her pocket. She failed to notice him the entire time.

"It's not important." She ignored the horrific pang of guilt that saying that made her feel. "What's important is that I found the captive half a mile down the road. A dog was chewing on his corpse. All that shit, just for the stupid asshole to get killed by a _dog _half a mile down the road."

"So what happened in there?" Jericho asked, pointing to the chapel.

"When you said people like that just couldn't survive in the wasteland, I realized you were right. They can't. Anyone worth their own balls wouldn't get caught like that. I gave her the easy way out. One bullet to the brain is much less painful than being slowly torn apart by something else."

"It makes sense," Jericho lied.

Rhydian knew he was lying. It didn't make sense to Jericho and she knew it. She knew he wouldn't waste a bullet to put even his own mother out of her misery. To him it was a waste of a perfectly hood bullet and she knew that.

"So, who is Jonas?" Jericho asked a second time.

"He was a real good family friend. He was killed by the bastard Overseer because of my dad. My dad knew how unstable the Overseer was. He never should have gotten Jonas involved."

"Jonas?" Jericho spat out in slight bewilderment. "What about you? He should have taken you with him or, at the very least, warned you. From what you've told me, you almost didn't make it out with your own fuckin' skin attached."

"He didn't mean to be like he was," she assured Jericho. "He and I never really connected. I think he was too broken from losing my mother to connect with me. He tried to protect me by leaving me behind, but he didn't do a very good job of it, really."

Rhydian lit up another cigarette and stared up at the starry sky. Her eyes focused on the moon and it made her feel warm inside to know that James could see the same damn moon from wherever he was.

"Hell," she said with a chuckle and a grin, "you've done a better job of protecting me. You're more like a father to me than he was."

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Rhydian was caught off-guard by the anger in Jericho's voice. At first she failed to understand what he was angry about, but then it hit her.

"I didn't mean that in a sentimental way, you grumpy, old fuck. It was merely an observation," she said with a grin. She offered him a cigarette in apology for the awkward moment.

To her surprise, he refused. A look appeared on his face that she had never known could be there. Guilt smothered his expression as he held up a cigarette that she didn't remember giving him. When she realized what was going on she laughed uncontrollably and forced the cigarette in his hand. Tears ran down her face as she tried to stop laughing.

"What the fuck are you laughing about?" Jericho asked angrily as he lit up a cigarette.

"You're going soft!" She managed to say before bursting into laughter again. She held her stomach as she fell off the tombstone in a fit of laughter.

"I am not. Fuck you," Jericho growled back, staring at her with such intensity that he almost thought he could light her on fire with a look.

She managed to catch her breath long enough to stare back at him. "Whatever you say," she smiled mischievously before adding, "Dad."

"Oh, fuck you!" Jericho shouted, flipping her the bird as he stomped away.

That made her laugh even harder. She clenched her stomach in agony. She could swear she was sprouting abs through all her laughing.

Jericho kicked a few boxes around inside the chapel in a fit of rage. He was _not _anything like a father to that insignificant, little brat. He was with her because she paid him and that was it. If she wasn't paying him, he'd have let that supermutant overload eat her whole.

He wasn't even a father to his own blasted kid, so why would he give a shit about her?

"I was just kidding with you," Rhydian told him in between laughs as she stumbled in the doorway.

She was about to double over from laughing so hard, so Jericho helped her. He shoved her to the ground and out of the way as he stomped out of the chapel. He walked away for a reason and it damn sure wasn't so that the brat would follow him.

Rhydian just stayed on the ground with a smile on her face. She'd finally managed to get under Jericho's skin like he was always under hers.

"Let me tell you one fuckin' thing," Jericho growled as he stood in the doorway. "If you were my kid, you wouldn't be such a good-two shoes bitch. If you were my kid, you'd have grown a pair of nuts and started raiding."

"I'm pretty sure my female anatomy is incapable of growing nuts, Jerry."

He sat down next to her. He would settle for being called _Jerry _if she never called him _Dad _again. He knew he couldn't have his mirelurk cakes and eat them, too.

"Hey," she piped as she looked up at him, "did you ever think about having kids? You know, a bunch of little asshole minions to carry on your terrifying name?"

He thought about telling her the truth for a long while. If he did, though, she'd have him searching from Rivet City to Raven Rock for the kid and that's not something he was willing to do. He looked down to answer her, but realized she was asleep.

He grabbed her arm and attempted to pull her onto the mattress that was lying on the floor.

"Don't you fuckin' touch me, Butch," the girl mumbled in her sleep as she yanked her arm away. "I'll shove Wally's head up your ass."

Jericho picked up the mattress on the floor and threw it on top of the vault kid. He figured that would be good enough.

He started searching through her packs only to discover that she had a whole carton of cigarettes. In his head, he cursed her as he stole several packs from the carton that she'd been hiding from him.

He thought about his kid as he leaned against the wall. He was pretty sure his son had been killed when his gang was slaughtered. He didn't stop to check out every body, but Jericho was the only one not in the building when the gang was slaughtered.

He knew his kid's mother had been killed. He saw her body. Seeing her body made him happy. He'd hated that broad. He'd almost left his raiding gang to search for a new one on account of that bitch just pissed him off.

If his kid happened to be alive, however, he hoped that it wouldn't be a holier than thou do-gooder like the brat that was paying him. That was one thing he couldn't stand for. If his son was anything like the vault kid, he'd kill him. There was no question about that.

The kid began mumbling in her sleep. He couldn't understand most of what she was saying. He was able to make out several names and words, but not much was clear.

In the middle of all the random words and names the kid said something clear as a bell.

"_I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely."_


End file.
